Merry Christmas From Outer Space, Everybody!
Check it out:
The Christmas Tree cluster received it nickname when amateur astronomers, first viewing it through small telescopes, observed its triangular outline of stars. It looked like a tree bedecked by dazzling holiday lights. The new infrared image reveals a different view: ribbons of gas and dust swirling like snow blowing in frigid winter winds and adorned by a festive collection of brilliant stars. The complex and breathtaking pattern of nebular emission traces a massive molecular cloud from which the cluster formed only recently.
Astronomers constructed the new image using data from two infrared cameras on Spitzer: the Infrared Array Camera, developed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer, developed by the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory. The dramatic appearance of the Christmas Tree cluster in infrared light results from heat radiation from ribbons of glowing dust that swaddle dozens of newborn stars just beginning to emerge from their natal cocoons.
-View The Christmas Tree Cluster at SPACE.com
Season's greetings, people!
The Christmas Tree cluster received it nickname when amateur astronomers, first viewing it through small telescopes, observed its triangular outline of stars. It looked like a tree bedecked by dazzling holiday lights. The new infrared image reveals a different view: ribbons of gas and dust swirling like snow blowing in frigid winter winds and adorned by a festive collection of brilliant stars. The complex and breathtaking pattern of nebular emission traces a massive molecular cloud from which the cluster formed only recently.
Astronomers constructed the new image using data from two infrared cameras on Spitzer: the Infrared Array Camera, developed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer, developed by the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory. The dramatic appearance of the Christmas Tree cluster in infrared light results from heat radiation from ribbons of glowing dust that swaddle dozens of newborn stars just beginning to emerge from their natal cocoons.
-View The Christmas Tree Cluster at SPACE.com
Season's greetings, people!