NASA said that a telescope captured an image of NGC 2264, which is a cluster of young stars aged between one and five million years old. NGC 2264 — also known as the "Christmas Tree Cluster ...

NASA’s telescopes have delivered a just-in-time holiday gift from the other side of the galaxy—a new composite image of a particularly festive grouping of stars known as the Christmas Tree ...

The colors in the new image, released Thursday, are used to indicate distance. Blue-hued galaxies are the closest, bursting with star formation and easily seen in visible light by Hubble.

The light from the Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster began its journey across the cosmos when the solar system, now 4.6 billion years old, was newly formed and just around 300 million years old.

NGC 2264 — also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster” since it looks like a cosmic tree with strings of glowing lights — can be found in the Milk Way, about 2,500 light-years from Earth.