If you’ve ever wanted to take a walk through deep space, this might be the closest you’ll get.
In this impressive animation, NASA allows the viewer to walk along the trunks of the ‘Pillars of Creation’ in a nebula 6,500 light years from Earth.
This is the most detailed and comprehensive video ever created of these star clouds, described as “towering tendrils” of cosmic dust and gas.
This is made possible by combining observations from NASA’s two most powerful space telescopes, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Hubble Space Telescope.
And, with JWST’s infrared spectrum, you can even look inside the three light-year-high pillars to see the birth of young stars.
This animation was created by combining observations from the Hubble telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. In this image you can see a comparison between the two different observations.
This innovative animation captures for the first time the 3D structure of these vast formations, allowing the viewer to fly into light years of space.
However, this is not simply an artist’s fanciful impression but a work of scientific research.
Using observations made by Anna McLeod, associate professor at Durham University, NASA has been able to accurately reconstruct the arrangement of the pillars.
Rendered in 3D, you can clearly see that the pillars are not aligned, but actually extend over a large region of space.
Frank Summers, senior visualization scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), says: “By flying between the pillars, viewers experience their three-dimensional structure and see how they look different in Hubble’s visible light view versus the of the Webb”. Infrared light view.
The Pillars of Creation are part of the Eagle Nebula, a structure just under 7,000 light years from Earth, first observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1985.
This animation was created by combining observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (left), which takes images in the infrared spectrum, with visible light spectrum images from the Hubble Telescope (right).
However, this latest animation combines photographs taken by Hubble with the latest observations from JWST.
Not only does this show the building blocks of creation in the greatest detail ever captured, it also provides new insight into the formation of stars like our own Sun.
Each of the three pillars is composed of cold molecular hydrogen and clouds of interstellar dust.
These enormous clouds, stretching up to light-years in length (three-quarters of the way from our Sun to the nearest star), make perfect stellar nurseries.
The Pillars of Creation 6,500 light years from us are located in a regional space known as the Eagle Nebula.
Thanks to the 3D animation, viewers can see that the pillars are not flat but are actually arranged along a large regional space.
While the interior of these structures is hidden in the visible light spectrum, infrared light penetrates the thick dust.
Summers says: “The contrast helps them understand why we have more than one space telescope to observe different aspects of the same object.”
Using the JWST to collect information in the infrared spectrum, we can look inside dust clouds to observe young stars in various stages of growth.
In the animation, you can see them as bright points of light visible through the dust or shown clearly in the infrared spectrum.
The visible light spectrum clearly shows the clouds of dust and cold molecular hydrogen that form the Pillars of Creation.
Infrared images allow scientists to peer into dust clouds to see protostars in the early stages of formation.
In one pillar we can see a young star ejecting a column of material into space, while in the largest pillar we can see a “protostar” (a very young star that is still accumulating mass).
Mark Clampin, director of the astrophysics division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, says: “When we combine observations from NASA’s space telescopes at different wavelengths of light, we expand our understanding of the universe.
«The Pillars of Creation region continues to offer us new knowledge that refines our understanding of how stars form.
“Now, with this new visualization, everyone can experience this rich and captivating landscape in a new way.”
The Pillars of Creation offer one of the most famous cosmic views in astronomical history.
The original Hubble Space Telescope image of the famous Pillars of Creation was taken two decades ago and immediately became one of its most famous and evocative photographs.
The outgoing structures, along with the nearby star cluster NGC 6611, are parts of a star-forming region called the Eagle Nebula, also known as Messier 16 or M16.
Resembling a ghostly hand, the Pillars of Creation are part of the Eagle Nebula, which is located 6,500 light years from Earth, and are known to be a source of star formation.
The nebula and its associated objects are located about 7,000 light years away, in the constellation of Serpens (The Serpent).
The Pillars of Creation are a classic example of the column shapes that develop in the giant clouds of gas and dust that are the birthplace of new stars.
The plumes arise when newly formed, massive blue-white O and B stars emit intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds that sweep away less dense material from their vicinity.
However, denser pockets of gas and dust can resist this erosion for longer.
Behind these thicker dust pockets, the material is shielded from the harsh, withering glare of O and B stars.
This shielding creates dark “tails” or “elephant trunks,” which we see as the dark body of a pillar, pointing away from the bright stars.
