NASA has published Portrait of Pillars of Creation taken by its James Webb Space Telescope. Webb has captured a lush, highly detailed landscape of the iconic Pillars of Creation, image shows that the new stars are forming within dense clouds of gas and dust. The three-dimensional pillars look like majestic rock formations but actually, these columns are made up of cool interstellar gas and dust that appear – at times, look semi-transparent in near-infrared light.
The Pillars of Creation were first imaged by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. Since then the Pillars of creation have drawn the attention of space researchers and astronomy-loving people. Webb's new highly detailed landscape image of the pillars of creation will help researchers update their knowledge of star formation by identifying far more precise counts of newly formed stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust in the region. Gradually, they will begin to understand and build a clearer view of how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds taking millions of years.
The Pillars of Creation look like a desert landscape in which arches and spires are rising out, it seems like a celebration of light and colors in NASA'S James Webb Space Telescope's near-infrared light view.
This is the region where stars are forming, this region is filled with semi-transparent gas, and dust that always continue to change.
NASA's James Webb Telescope's Star-Filled Portrait of Pillars of Creation
credit: NASA
Newly formed stars draw attention in this Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image. These are the bright red spheres that sometimes appear with eight diffraction projections. When knots with sufficient mass form within the pillars, they begin to collapse under their own gravity, slowly heat up, and start shining brightly.
There are coloured wavy lines along the edges of the pillars that look like lava, these are emissions from stars that are still forming. Newly formed stars recorrently shoot out supersonic jets that can interact within clouds of gas and dust. This sometimes also results in bow shocks, which can form wavy patterns like a boat does as it moves through water. The estimated age of these young stars is only a few hundred thousand years, and it seems that these stars will continue to form for millions of years.
Although it may appear that near-infrared light has allowed Webb to “pierce through” the clouds of gas and dust to reveal great cosmic distances beyond the pillars, there are no galaxies in this image, instead a mix of translucent gas and dust known as the interstellar medium that blocks our view of the deeper universe and stands in the way, like a drawn curtain.
This may be the reason why there are no distant galaxies in this view, as the translucent layer of gas blocks our view of the deeper universe. in addition the dust is lit up by the collective light from the shiny dense stars that have burst free from the pillars.
James Webb’s new view of the Pillars of Creation will help astronomers to have a clearer understanding of the process of star formation. By identifying far more precise star populations and patterns along with the quantities of gas and luminous dust in the region, they will be able to build a wider understanding of how stars form and burst out of these clouds over millions of years.
The Pillars of Creation is a small region within the vast Eagle Nebula, which lies 6,500 light-years away.
This clearer and milestone image of the Pillars of Creation is taken by Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) installed on James Webb Space Telescope, this NIRCam was built by a team of engineers at the university of Arizona and Lockheed Martin's Center of Advanced Technology.
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