Iconic ‘Pillars of Creation’ captured by James Webb Space Telescope
- Nasa revealed a stunning image of the massive structures of gas and dust teeming with stars, which were made famous by the Hubble telescope
- The ‘Pillars of Creation’ are located 6,500 light years from Earth, in the Eagle Nebula of our Milky Way galaxy
The James Webb Space Telescope captured the iconic “Pillars of Creation”, huge structures of gas and dust teeming with stars, Nasa said on Wednesday, and the image is as majestic as one could hope.
The twinkling of thousands of stars illuminates the telescope’s first shot of the gigantic gold, copper and brown columns standing in the midst of the cosmos.
At the ends of several pillars are bright red, lava-like spots. “These are ejections from stars that are still forming,” only a few hundred thousand years old, Nasa said in a statement.
These “young stars periodically shoot out supersonic jets that collide with clouds of material, like these thick pillars”, the US space agency added.
The “Pillars of Creation” are located 6,500 light years from Earth, in the Eagle Nebula of our Milky Way galaxy.
The pillars were made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope, which first captured them in 1995 and then again in 2014.