The Pillars of Creation are set off in a kaleidoscope of color in NASA’s
James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared-light view. The pillars look like
arches and spires rising out of a desert landscape, but are filled with
semi-transparent gas and dust, and ever changing. This is a region where young
stars are forming – or have barely burst from their dusty cocoons as they
continue to form. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale
(STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI).
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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a lush, highly detailed
landscape – the iconic Pillars of Creation – where new stars are forming within
dense clouds of gas and dust. The three-dimensional pillars look like majestic
rock formations, but are far more permeable. These columns are made up of cool
interstellar gas and dust that appear – at times – semi-transparent in
near-infrared light.
Webb’s new view of the Pillars of Creation, which were first made famous
when imaged by NASA’s Hubble Space
Telescope in 1995, will help researchers revamp their
models of star formation by identifying far more precise counts of newly formed
stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust in the region. Over time, they
will begin to build a clearer understanding of how stars form and burst out of
these dusty clouds over millions of years.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope made the Pillars of Creation famous with its
first image in 1995, but revisited the scene in 2014 to reveal a sharper, wider
view in visible light, shown above at left. A new, near-infrared-light view
from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, at right, helps us peer through more of
the dust in this star-forming region. The thick, dusty brown pillars are no
longer as opaque and many more red stars that are still forming come into view.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M.
Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI).
Newly formed stars are the scene-stealers in this image from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). These are the bright red orbs that typically have
diffraction spikes and lie outside one of the dusty pillars. When knots with
sufficient mass form within the pillars of gas and dust, they begin to collapse
under their own gravity, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars.
What about those wavy lines that look like lava at the edges of some
pillars? These are ejections from stars that are still forming within the gas
and dust. Young stars periodically shoot out supersonic jets that collide with
clouds of material, like these thick pillars. This sometimes also results in
bow shocks, which can form wavy patterns like a boat does as it moves through
water. The crimson glow comes from the energetic hydrogen molecules that result
from jets and shocks. This is evident in the second and third pillars from the
top – the NIRCam image is practically pulsing with their activity. These young
stars are estimated to be only a few hundred thousand years old.
Although it may appear that near-infrared light has allowed Webb to “pierce
through” the clouds to reveal great cosmic distances beyond the pillars, there
are no galaxies in this view. Instead, a mix of translucent gas and dust known
as the interstellar medium in the densest part of our Milky Way galaxy’s disk blocks our view of
the deeper universe.
This scene was first imaged by Hubble in 1995 and revisited in 2014, but many other observatories have also stared deeply at this region. Each
advanced instrument offers researchers new details about this region, which is
practically overflowing with stars.
This tightly cropped image is set within the vast Eagle Nebula, which lies 6,500 light-years away.
Take a video tour of Webb’s near-infrared light view of the Pillars of
Creation. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M.
Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Danielle Kirshenblat (STScI).
Download the full-resolution, uncompressed version and supporting visuals of Webb’s near-infrared
image, the comparison of Hubble
and Webb’s images, and the video tour of Webb’s
image from the Space Telescope Science Institute.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
Source: NASA’s Webb Takes Star-Filled Portrait of Pillars of Creation | NASA
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