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.

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 ...

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.