Just in time to herald the holidays, two beautiful sights in space caught the interest of amateur and professional astronomers alike. For Christmas it was the Wreath Nebula and for the coming New Year it is the Quadrantids.

Wreath Nebula

In December, an image of a nebula likened to a holiday wreath was taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.

The nebula, formally called "Barnard 3" or IRAS Ring G159.6-18.5, comes from 1,000 light years away.

The particular image captured by WISE shows interstellar dust clouds in red and green interspersed with blue stars.

"The green ring (evergreen) is made of tiny particles of warm dust whose composition is very similar to smog found here on Earth. The red cloud (bow) in the middle is probably made of dust that is more metallic and cooler than the surrounding regions. The bright star in the middle of the red cloud, called HD 278942, is so luminous that it is likely what is causing most of the surrounding ring to glow," stated NASA in their description of the Wreath Nebula.

Quadrantids

On Jan. 4, spectators will be treated to the sight of a rare meteor shower called the Quadrantids.

In 1795, French astronomer Jérôme Lalande named the meteors after a constellation which no longer exists known as Quadrans Muralis or the mural quadrant. The Quadrans Muralis was originally used to observe stars and measure their positions in space.

The Quadrantids are said to come from an asteroid called 2003 EH1.

"Dynamical studies suggest that this body could very well be a piece of a comet which broke apart several centuries ago, and that the meteors you will see before dawn on Jan. 4 are the small debris from this fragmentation," explained NASA.

Visible only from the Northern Hemisphere, the Quadrantids will be at their peak for two hours before dawn.

After hundreds of years orbiting the sun, they will enter our atmosphere at 90,000 mph, burning up 50 miles above Earth's surface," added NASA on their Web site.

NASA