Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) left astronomers feeling festive recently as it allowed them to image a distant, colourful cluster of galaxies they have dubbed the “Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster.”

In this cluster, the James Webb Space Telescope discovered flickering “Christmas lights” in the form of 14 new transient objects — celestial objects that brighten dramatically before dating. The winter wonderland is officially called MACS041, and is located about 4.3 billion light-years from Earth.

“We’re calling MACS0416 the Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster, both because it’s so colourful and because of the flickering lights we find within it,” Haojing Yan, an associate professor in the University of Missouri Department of Physics and Astronomy, said in a statement. “Transients are objects in space, like individual stars, that appear to suddenly brighten by orders of magnitudes and then fade away. These transient objects appear bright for only a short period of time and then are gone; it’s like we’re peering through a shifting magnifying glass.”