Sam Harrelson

TUCSON, Ariz. - Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered a perfectly decorated Christmas tree 2,500 light years from earth. Scientists at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory said the remarkable star cluster gives them the first glimpse of newborn stars acting just as predicted - patterned geometrically and spaced according to density, temperature and gravity.

“If you look at the very young stars in the cluster and the spacing between them, it isn’t random spacing,” said Erick T. Young, an astronomer at the Steward Observatory. “They’re all about the same distance apart.”

The stars are less than 100,000 years old and located in a nebula in the Monoceros, or Unicorn, constellation. The constellation is visible in the winter sky to the east of Orion.

The images captured by the space telescope reinforce the basic theory that the gravity and density of the dust and gas cloud are determining factors in the formation of stars.

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