James Webb telescope spies 'Pillars of Creation'

7:05 pm on 20 October 2022

By Jonathan Amos, BBC science correspondent

This handout photo provided by NASA on October 19, 2022 shows the Pillars of Creation that are set off in a kaleidoscope of color in NASA’s 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. (Photo by Handout / NASA/ESA/CSA / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / NASA/ESA/CSA " - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

The James Webb telescope shows the pillars are cool, dense clouds of hydrogen gas and dust. Photo: AFP / NASA/ESA/CSA

It's a classic - one of the most beautiful sights in the cosmos and now the new super space telescope James Webb has visited it anew.

The so-called Pillars of Creation are cool, dense clouds of hydrogen gas and dust in the Serpens constellation, some 6500 light-years from Earth.

Every large telescope has imaged this scene, most famously the Hubble observatory in 1995 and 2014.

James Webb has given us yet another incredible perspective.

The pillars lie at the heart of what astronomers refer to as Messier 16 (M16), or the Eagle Nebula. This is an active star-forming region.

Webb, with its infrared detectors, is able to see past much of the light-scattering effects of the pillars' dust to examine the activity of the new-born suns.

"I've been studying the Eagle Nebula since the mid-1990s, trying to see 'inside' the light-years long pillars that Hubble showed, searching for young stars inside them. I always knew that when James Webb took pictures of it, they would be stunning. And so they are," said Prof Mark McCaughrean, the senior adviser for Science at the European Space Agency.

These handout photos provided by NASA on October 19, 2022 shows the Pillars of Creation that are set off in a kaleidoscope of color in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared-light view (R) compared to the Hubble's telescope 2014 wider view in visible light (L). - 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. (Photo by Space Telescope Science Institut / NASA/ESA/CSA / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / NASA/ESA/CSA " - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

Hubble telescope image on the left and Webb on the right: The new telescope's infrared detectors can see past more of the pillars' dust. Photo: AFP / NASA/ESA/CSA

The M16's pillars are being illuminated and sculpted by the intense ultraviolet light from massive nearby stars. That radiation is also dismantling the towers.

Indeed, if you could magically transport yourself to this location today, the pillars are very probably no longer there.

We only see them because we're looking at them in the past. The light that Webb detects has taken 6500 years to reach its mirrors.

James Webb is a collaborative project of the US, European and Canadian space agencies. It was launched in December last year and is regarded as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.

-BBC