[NASA] NASA Missions Spot Cosmic ‘Wreath’ Displaying Stellar Circle of Life

[SpaceMan 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

X-ray: NASA/CXC; Infrared: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, P. Zeilder, E.Sabbi, A. Nota, M. Zamani; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand

Since antiquity, wreaths have symbolized the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. It is fitting then that one of the best places for astronomers to learn more about the stellar lifecycle resembles a giant holiday wreath itself.

The 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 NGC 602 lies on the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is one of the closest galaxies to the 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, about 200,000 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 from Earth. The 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 in NGC 602 have fewer heavier 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 compared to the Sun and most of the rest of the galaxy. Instead, the conditions within NGC 602 mimic those for stars found billions of years ago when the universe was much younger.

This new image combines data from 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 with a previously released image from the agency’s 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. The dark ring-like outline of the wreath seen in Webb data (represented as orange, yellow, green, and blue) is made up of dense clouds of filled dust.

Meanwhile, 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 from Chandra (red) show young, massive stars that are illuminating the wreath, sending high-energy light into 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. These X-rays are powered by winds flowing from the young, massive stars that are sprinkled throughout the cluster. The extended cloud in the Chandra data likely comes from the overlapping X-ray glow of thousands of young, low-mass stars in the cluster.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Clow, M.; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand

In addition to this cosmic wreath, 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 is also now available. Like NGC 602, NGC 2264 is a cluster of young stars between one and five million years old. (For comparison, the Sun is a middle-aged star about 5 billion years old — about 1,000 times older.) In this image of NGC 2264, which is much closer than NGC 602 at a distance of about 2,500 light-years from Earth, Chandra data (red, purple, blue, and white) has been combined with optical data (green and violet) captured from by astrophotographer Michael Clow from his telescope in Arizona in November 2024.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Visual Description

This release includes two composite images, each featuring a star cluster that strongly resembles holiday greenery.

The first image depicts star cluster NGC 602 in vibrant and festive colors. The cluster includes a giant dust cloud ring, shown in greens, yellows, blues, and oranges. The green hues and feathery edges of the ring cloud create the appearance of a wreath made of evergreen boughs. Hints of red representing X-rays provide shading, highlighting layers within the wreath-like ring cloud.

The image is aglow with specks and dots of colorful, festive light, in blues, golds, whites, oranges, and reds. These lights represent stars within the cluster. Some of the lights gleam with diffraction spikes, while others emit a warm, diffuse glow. Upon closer inspection, many of the glowing specks have spiraling arms, indicating that they are, in fact, distant galaxies.

The second image in today’s release is a new depiction of NGC 2264, known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster”. Here, wispy green clouds in a conical shape strongly resemble an evergreen tree. Tiny specks of white, blue, purple, and red light, stars within the cluster, dot the structure, turning the cloud into a festive, cosmic Christmas tree!

News Media Contact

Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
*****@*****.tld

Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
lane.e*****@*****.tld

Explore More

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Article 1 day ago

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Article 4 days ago

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Article 5 days ago

Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From NASA

Missions

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Humans in Space

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Climate Change

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Solar System

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

For verified travel tips and real support, visit: https://hopzone.eu/

0

• Quote

Link to comment

https://hopzone.eu/forums/topic/184750-nasa-nasa-missions-spot-cosmic-%E2%80%98wreath%E2%80%99-displaying-stellar-circle-of-life/

Share on other sites

---

More sharing options...