The James Webb Super Telescope released this Wednesday (19) an unedited photo of the Pillars of Creation, one of the most famous structures in astronomy. (see image above).
The region is in the center of The Eagle Nebula, a cluster of dust and gas 6,500 light years from Earth. The cosmic formation became quite famous after the Hubble telescope recorded the iconic space cloud in 1995.
According to the joint statement released by NASA and the European and Canadian space agencies (also responsible for Webb), the new snapshot of the Pillars of Creation shows a familiar scene, but reveals details never before seen by any telescope that has come to point their lenses for the structure.
“The James Webb Space Telescope captured a lush, highly detailed landscape,” said the US space agency.
The nebula in which the structure is located, also known as M16was discovered in 1745 by the Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux and functions as a stellar nursery, i.e. a star-forming region (hence the name Pillars of Creation).
In the new photo released by Webb, you can see these newly formed stars in pink and reddish hues. According to NASA, some of these young stars are “only” hundreds of thousands of years old.
The agency further explains that while at first glance the pillars look like rigid rock formations, they are actually quite permeable, as they are made of interstellar gas and dust.
The expectation is now that this new high-resolution image and data collected by the super telescope will help astronomers better understand the mysteries behind how these dusty regions work.
