Random Acts of Verbiage

It has been a while since I have done a Space Saturday so I wanted to get one up, but it is also Christmas Eve so I am going to keep it light. So light in fact, that I am going to steal Tom’s Astronomy Blog‘s post for today (well, it also happens to be a good one as well): The Christmas Tree Cluster.

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

Aside from being a spectacular image there are some interesting things in it. First is what is called the Snowflake cluster. The Snowflake cluster is the grouping of small pink stars near the center of the image and gets the nickname from the regular spaced intervals along fairly linear structures, and looks a bit like a snowflake.

Thanks for allowing the thievery and keeping it short and sweet for today, of course there is much to be said about this image, but you can look into it more if you want. For more of my selections, head to my Space Saturday Archive. Merry Christmas!

Resources
Tom’s Astronomy Blog – The Christmas Tree Cluster
Spitzer Space Telescope – Stellar Snowflake Cluster
SEDS – NGC 2264: Chrismas Tree Cluster
Wikipedia – Christmas Tree Cluster

-Matt Jones