NASA's festive cosmic snapshot unveils star cluster secrets
NASA has unveiled a truly stellar gift: a new image of the star cluster NGC 602, located 200,000 light-years from Earth.
This new image is the result of a collaboration between some of the most advanced space telescopes in the world. The data was collected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope. Together, they capture the star cluster NGC 602. This stellar "wreath" is situated on the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, one of the galaxies closest to the Milky Way — about 200,000 light-years from our planet.
A peculiar formation of young stars from the early universe
NGC 602 is a unique cluster of young, hot blue stars. As NASA reports, "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 gas from which these stars formed still envelops them. NASA describes that "their radiation pierces the cluster and moves towards the blue stars." Astronomers note that this gas is different from that found in the much larger Milky Way.
This difference is because, as NASA explains, the gas in the Small Magellanic Cloud — where these stars are located — contains fewer heavy elements, formed by the explosion and rebuilding of many generations of stars, compared to the Milky Way. Astronomers believe that NGC 602 serves as a valuable model of stars that formed billions of years ago when the universe was younger. The NGC 602 cluster may give us a glimpse of what this early universe looked like.
The new image, which NASA shared for the holidays, is a composite of data collected by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the most powerful X-ray telescope in the world, alongside a previously released image from the James Webb Space Telescope. The dark ring resembling a wreath, visible in Webb's data and represented as orange, yellow, green, and blue, consists of dense clouds filled with dust.
Collaboration of two advanced telescopes
As NASA emphasizes, the X-ray data from Chandra, shown in red, reveals the presence of young, massive stars emitting high-energy radiation. The orange, yellow, green, and blue infrared data highlight the complex structures of dust and gas in this region. Together, the data create an image of the stellar life cycle, from their formation to the dispersion of stellar matter, NASA informs.
