The Pillars of Creation are set off in a kaleidoscope of colour in the NASA/ESA/CSA 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. Protostars are the scene-stealers in this Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image. These are the bright red orbs that sometimes appear with eight diffraction spikes. When knots with sufficient mass form within the pillars, they begin to collapse under their own gravity, slowly heat up, and eventually begin shining brightly. Along the edges of the pillars are wavy lines that look like lava. These are ejections from stars that are still forming. Young stars periodically shoot out jets that can interact within clouds of material, like these thick pillars 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. These young stars are estimated to be only a few hundred thousand years old, and will continue to form for millions of years. Although it may appear that near-infrared light has allowed Webb to “pierce through” the background to reveal great cosmic distances beyond the pillars, the interstellar medium stands in the way, like a drawn curtain. This is also the reason why there are no distant galaxies in this view. This translucent layer of gas blocks our view of the deeper universe. Plus, dust is lit up by the collective light from the packed “party” of stars that have burst free from the pillars. It’s like standing in a well-lit room looking out a window – the interior light reflects on the pane, obscuring the scene outside and, in turn, illuminating the activity at the party inside. Webb’s new view of the Pillars of Creation will help researchers revamp models of star formation.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; J. DePasq
I predicted this back in January and at last it’s happened—the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has dropped its most epic image yet.
Titled “Pillars of Creation,” it’s a do-over of a near-identical region of space imaged using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) back in the 1990s.
The portrait-shaped 123-megapixel (8,423 x 14,589 pixels) image can be downloaded as a 163.4MB “fulllsize original” image in the TIF format. There’s also a huge zoomable version to explore in a browser as well as a 1MB-size “screensize JPEG” and a bunch of wallpaper-sized images that are ideal for various desktop PCs, tablets and smartphones.
It’s no surprise to see a new JWST Vs. HST image that shows-off exactly what the new infrared space telescope is capable of when compared to the ageing ultra-violet/visible space telescope.
But JWST’s “Pillars of Creation” is just incredible.
HST’s original version in 1995 and its post-upgrade near-infrared version in 2014 remain spectacular, showcasing the fingers of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, which is 7,000 light years distant in the constellation of Serpens. It’s a region where new stars are forming within dense clouds of cool gas and dust.
JWST’s view is different.
JWST’s version includes red orbs at the ends of the finger-like tendrils of cool interstellar gas and dust. These red orbs are protostars—very young newborn stars that only JWST can see. To add to the beauty the gas and dust seems almost translucent.
The image was captured by JWST’s NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) using specialized infrared filters, then artificially colored to make specific features stand out.
Here’s the image in all of its uncropped glory:
The Pillars of Creation are set off in a kaleidoscope of colour in the NASA/ESA/CSA 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. Protostars are the scene-stealers in this Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image. These are the bright red orbs that sometimes appear with eight diffraction spikes. When knots with sufficient mass form within the pillars, they begin to collapse under their own gravity, slowly heat up, and eventually begin shining brightly. Along the edges of the pillars are wavy lines that look like lava. These are ejections from stars that are still forming. Young stars periodically shoot out jets that can interact within clouds of material, like these thick pillars 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. These young stars are estimated to be only a few hundred thousand years old, and will continue to form for millions of years. Although it may appear that near-infrared light has allowed Webb to “pierce through” the background to reveal great cosmic distances beyond the pillars, the interstellar medium stands in the way, like a drawn curtain. This is also the reason why there are no distant galaxies in this view. This translucent layer of gas blocks our view of the deeper universe. Plus, dust is lit up by the collective light from the packed “party” of stars that have burst free from the pillars. It’s like standing in a well-lit room looking out a window – the interior light reflects on the pane, obscuring the scene outside and, in turn, illuminating the activity at the party inside. Webb’s new view of the Pillars of Creation will help researchers revamp models of star formation.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; J. DePasq
Finally, here below is HST and JWST (left and right, respectively), side-by-side to show-off the differences. HST’s visible-light view shows darker pillars while JWST’s near-infrared image shows the same pillars as red and semi-opaque.
The NASA/ESA 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 the NASA/ESA/CSA 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. While the pillars of gas and dust seem darker and less penetrable in Hubble’s view, they appear more diaphanous in Webb’s. The background of this Hubble image is like a sunrise, beginning in yellows at the bottom, before transitioning to light green and deeper blues at the top. These colours highlight the thickness of the dust all around the pillars, which obscures many more stars in the overall region. In contrast, the background light in Webb’s image appears in blue hues, which highlights the hydrogen atoms, and reveals an abundance of stars spread across the scene. By penetrating the dusty pillars, Webb also allows us to identify stars that have recently – or are about to – burst free. Near-infrared light can penetrate thick dust clouds, allowing us to learn so much more about this incredible scene. Both views show us what is happening locally. Although Hubble highlights many more thick layers of dust and Webb shows more of the stars, neither shows us the deeper universe. Dust blocks the view in Hubble’s image, but the interstellar medium plays a major role in Webb’s. It acts like thick smoke or fog, preventing us from peering into the deeper universe, where countless galaxies exist. The pillars are a small region within the Eagle Nebula, a vast star-forming region 6,500 light-years from Earth. [Image Description: Two images of the Pillars of Creation, a star-forming region in space. At left, Hubble’s visible-light view shows darker pillars that rise from the bottom to the
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; J. DePasq
JWST is the most ambitious and complex space science telescope ever constructed, with a massive 6.5-meter primary mirror that will be able to detect the faint light of far-away stars and galaxies. It’s designed solely to detect infrared light emitted by distant stars, planets and clouds of gas and dust.
It’s observing from about a million miles from Earth, but will see light from the first stars and the earliest galaxies.
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