James Webb Telescope Unveils New View of Pillars of Creation

Nearly 30 years ago, the Pillars of Creation stunned the world of astronomy when they were captured by NASA’s famous Hubble Space Telescope.

Now a new generation can enjoy a new take on the haunting scene after the US space agency’s James Webb $10billion (£7.4billion) Super Space Telescope imaged the same tendrils of gas and dust in the shape of fingers.

Resembling a ghostly hand, the Pillars of Creation are part of the Eagle Nebula – located 6,500 light-years from Earth – and are known to be a source of star formation.

This week, NASA and the European Space Agency revealed another look at Webb’s Sharp Eye Pillars.

The last image was taken in mid-infrared light, which blocks the brightness of stars and therefore only captures circulating gas and dust. This provided a new way of experiencing and understanding the amazing training.

Webb has instruments that see in different wavelengths of infrared.

In October, experts released an image of the pillars of the near-infrared camera (NIRCam) creation, before following it up with an image of its mid-infrared instrument (MIRI).

They’ve now stitched the images together to produce a haunting image that showcases the best of both views, showcasing glowing dust edges where young stars are beginning to form.

NIRCam reveals newly formed stars in orange outside the pillars, while MRI shows the layers of dust in the formation.

“That’s one of the reasons the region is teeming with stars — dust is a major ingredient in star formation,” NASA said.

The glowing red fingertip on the second pillar suggests active star formation, but the stars are just babies – NASA estimates they are only some 100,000 years old.

They take millions of years to fully form.

“By combining images of the iconic Pillars of Creation from two cameras aboard NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the universe was framed in its infrared glory,” the Webb team wrote.

They said it “ignited this star-forming region with new detail.”

When nodes of gas and dust of sufficient mass form in the pillars, they begin to collapse under their own gravitational pull, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars.

“The newly formed stars are particularly apparent at the edges of the two upper pillars – they practically burst onto the scene,” Team Webb said.

“Almost everything you see in this scene is local.

“The distant universe is largely blocked from our view by both the interstellar medium, which is sparse gas and dust located between stars, and a thick dust lane in our Milky Way galaxy.

“As a result, the stars take center stage in Webb’s view of the Pillars of Creation.”

The Pillars of Creation are located in the constellation of Serpents.

This contains a young, hot star cluster, NGC6611, visible with modest backyard telescopes, which sculpts and illuminates the surrounding gas and dust, resulting in a huge hollowed-out cavity and pillars, each several light years.

The 1995 Hubble image hinted at the birth of new stars in the pillars. Due to obscuring dust, Hubble’s visible-light image couldn’t see inside and prove that young stars were forming.

NASA then sent Hubble back for a second visit, allowing them to compare the two shots.

Astronomers have noticed changes in a jet-like feature moving away from one of the newborn stars in the pillars.

The jet stretched 60 billion miles between sightings, suggesting material in the jet was moving at a speed of around 450,000 miles per hour.