The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released stunningly detailed images of the Pillars of Creation taken by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on Wednesday. JWST is jointly operated by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
The Pillars of Creation were first made famous when NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of them in 1995. These pillars appear like rock formations – three towers of gas and dust which are more permeable than they look. The Pillars of Creation are part of the Eagle Nebula, also known as Messier 16. The Eagle Nebula was discovered in 1745 by Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux, and is located 6,500 light-years from the earth in the constellation Serpens.
The Hubble Space Telescope photographed the Pillars of Creation twice – once in 1995, and once in April 2015 when the telescope revisited the Eagle Nebula to mark its 25th year in orbit with an even clearer image.
How are the pillars structured?
According to NASA, the pillars resemble buttes in the desert. They are essentially very dense clouds of molecular hydrogen gas and dust that have survived longer than their surroundings while hot newborn stars in the vicinity (first pictured at the top of the pillars with the Hubble Telescope and visible even more clearly with JWST) throw ultraviolet light in their direction.
Pillars of Creation (NIRCam Image)
The process by which high-energy radiation like ultraviolet light causes changes in substances it hits is called photoevaporation. This phenomenon causes the pillars to erode slowly, exposing small globules of even denser gas buried within them. These globules are called evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs). Embryonic stars form inside some EGGs but abruptly stop growing when they are uncovered, separating them from the larger reservoir of gas from which they were drawing mass. The stars eventually emerge from the EGGs.
Importance of the new images captured by JWST
The images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope will help researchers revamp “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”. This can potentially simplify the understanding of how stars form and burst out of clouds of dust and gas.
Other elements of the image
If you compare the images taken by the Hubble Telescope to that by JWST, the stars in the new image stand out more.
The wavy lines at the edge of some pillars (that NASA says looks like lava) are ejections from stars that are still forming within the gas and dust. Young stars sometimes shoot out supersonic jets that can result in shocks on collision with material, resulting in wavy patterns. The energetic hydrogen molecules caused by the jets and shocks gives it a reddish hue.
What does the Pillars of Creation image not show?
There are no galaxies visible in the image taken by JWST. Interstellar medium – a mix of translucent gas and dust – blocks our view.
- The Pillars of Creation were first made famous when NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of them in 1995. These pillars appear to look like rock formations – three towers of gas and dust which are more permeable than they look.
- The images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope will help researchers revamp “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”.
- If you compare the images taken by the Hubble Telescope to that by JWST, the stars in the new image stand out more.
