On Christmas, Photo Of "Path Left By Santa's Sleigh" Goes Viral

Celebrating Christmas, the European Space Agency (ESA) has posted a vibrant image of a "path left by Santa's sleigh". The stunning photo shows has amassed close to 13,000 likes on Instagram. It actually shows Herbig-Haro objects, the luminous regions surrounding newborn stars. Christmas is a festival that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ. It is celebrate don December 25 every year. The ESA said that the image was captured by James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to Hubble telescope, on December 25, 2021.

"On 25 December 2021, an Ariane 5 rocket followed Santa Claus and launched @esawebb into space. Today, Webb brings what looks like the path left by Santa's sleigh," the ESA said in the Instagram post.

"Herbig-Haro objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars (known as protostars), and are formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shockwaves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high speeds," the caption further said.

The photo became a hit on social media.

"Druids call it the snake, our consciousness within the Milky Way is known as the egg of creation. When you see the same and the egg it represents this. Our consciousness in the Milky Way," commented one user.

"Looks Like a snake or the spaghetti monster," said another, adding an emoji representing surprise.

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket on December 25, 2021. The observatory took a month to be fully deployed nearly 1.6 million kilometres away from Earth and took over observation of the universe from Hubble Space Telescope.