The James Webb Space Telescope captured new images of the Pillars of Creation. NASA notes that this is the most iconic target the telescope has managed to capture since it launched into space on December 25, 2021. The images show an enormous arm from the Eagle Nebula.
The Pillars of Creation are named for their magnitude. They are clouds of dust and gas several light-years away that extend across an area of the galaxy forming what look like large cosmic fingers of a hand. The new image, captured by the Webb Near Infrared Camera or NIRCam, captures the births of new stars that look like tiny red dots and are known as 'baby stars.' In addition, the space telescope was able to record a video that NASA released along with the images.
This space spectacle was captured by Hubble in 1995 and by Herschel in 2014 but the new image from the Webb telescope shows new details that help to explain some of the remaining unknowns about the birth of stars. NASA shared the discoveries on its Twitter account:
This is what you've waited for.
Journey with us through Webb's breathtaking view of the Pillars of Creation, where scores of newly formed stars glisten like dewdrops among floating, translucent columns of gas and dust: https://t.co/5ea1kCzU5x
Here's your guided tour ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/jFiDDDrMUPl
- NASA Hallo-Webb Telescope 🕸🕷🎃 (@NASAWebb) October 19, 2022
The European Space Agency also explained in a statement what these images mean for the space community:
Webb’s spectroscopic capabilities, combined with its infrared sensitivity, have uncovered a cluster of massive galaxies in the process of formation around an extremely red quasar. The result will expand our understanding of how galaxies in the early Universe coalesced into the cosmic web we see today.
