Starry Critters

Spacey Tree

by CritterKeeper on Dec.14, 2009, under Plants/Flowers

Credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/P.S. Teix­eira (Cen­ter for Astrophysics)

Whether you see a Christ­mas tree or snowflake, this neb­ula rep­re­sents win­ter. Trace the dim tri­an­gu­lar pat­tern of the tree in the wisps of green and yel­low. Or fol­low the pat­tern of a snowflake in the cen­ter group of stars in this Spitzer Space Tele­scope image of the Christ­mas Tree Neb­ula.

T.A. Rector (NRAO/AUI/NSF and NOAO/AURA/NSF) and B.A. Wolpa (NOAO/AURA/NSF)

T.A. Rec­tor (NRAO/AUI/NSF and NOAO/AURA/NSF) and B.A. Wolpa (NOAO/AURA/NSF)

The Christ­mas Tree clus­ter is a star–form­ing region about 2,700 light-years away toward the con­stel­la­tion of Mono­c­eros, the uni­corn. A light-year is the dis­tance light trav­els in one year; a dis­tance of about 10 tril­lion kilo­me­ters. In the mid­dle of the image, this star-forming cloud appears to have reg­u­larly spaced stars. Astronomers believe that these are very young stars just born in their dusty cocoons. Even­tu­ally, these stars will move away from their birth­place and the snowflake will dis­ap­pear. The yel­low­ish dots in the clus­ter are huge baby stars.

Find the dusty fin­ger point­ing down from the top at the star clus­ter. This is the dark and dusty Cone Neb­ula. Spitzer helps astronomers explore the uni­verse in infrared light. Infrared is a form of light that is just below what we can see with our eyes but we can feel it as heat. In the yel­low­ish heart-shaped region near the top, Spitzer helps us see through the dust to reveal the youngest pro­to­stars in the cloud, just now begin­ning to glow as they join their crib-mates to become full-fledged stars.

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