SEE IT: Christmas tree spotted in space

By Dean Murray via SWNS

A Christmas tree of stars has been spotted in space, scientists say.

A new image of NGC 2264, also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” shows the shape of a cosmic tree with the glow of stellar lights.

NASA says the composite picture enhances the resemblance to a Christmas tree through choices of color and rotation.

The blue and white lights, which blink in the animated version of the image, are young stars that give off X-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

While optical data from the National Science Foundation’s WIYN 0.9-metre telescope on Kitt Peak shows gas in the nebula in green, corresponding to the “pine needles” of the tree, and infrared data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey shows foreground and background stars in white.

The space agency explains: "NGC 2264 is, in fact, a cluster of young stars — with ages between about one and five million years old — in our Milky Way about 2,500 light-years away from Earth.

"The stars in NGC 2264 are both smaller and larger than the Sun, ranging from some with less than a tenth the mass of the Sun to others containing about seven solar masses."

NASA has rotated the image clockwise by about 160 degrees from the astronomer’s standard of North pointing upward so that it appears like the top of the tree is toward the top of the image.