Rolling Starbirth

Vast clouds of gas and dust have given birth to more than a thousand stars in NGC 2264, a stellar nursery about 2,600 light-years away in the faint constellation Monoceros, the unicorn. The hottest, brightest stars form a cluster known as the Christmas Tree (they form the shape of a tree when viewed upside down, as through the eyepiece of a telescope). Starbirth has now moved south of the cluster and is concentrated near the top of the Cone Nebula, the dark cone at the bottom of the image. [ESO]