TWENTY-SEVEN years after the first photo of the iconic “Pillars of Creation” was released, NASA has revealed a never before seen photo of the mind-blowing space landscape.
NASA released the photo on Wednesday, highlighting that the striking image will “help researchers revamp their models of star formation by identifying more precise counts of newly formed stars.”
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The Pillars of Creation, which is located 6,500 light-years away from Earth in the Eagle Nebula, first made headlines in 1995, when NASA released an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
At the time, the photo depicted three massive cloud pillars made of gas and dust, surrounded by several scattered stars.
Astronomy fans got an updated look of the landscape in 2014, which showed a sharper and wider view.
The most updated image – taken with a near-infrared camera by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope – goes even further, allowing us to partially look through the cloud pillars to see millions of more stars.
Several bright red orbs can be seen in the new photo, which NASA explained are “newly formed stars.”
“When knots with sufficient mass form within the pillars of gas and dust, they begin to collapse under their own gravity, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars,” NASA said.
The photo also features many wavy–looking lines at the edge of the pillars that almost look like lava.
NASA says these are “ejections from stars” which are still forming.
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“Young stars periodically shoot out supersonic jets that collide with clouds of material, like these thick pillars.”
“This sometimes also results in bow shocks, which can form wavy patterns like a boat does as it moves through water. The crimson glow comes from the energetic hydrogen molecules that result from jets and shocks.”
According to NASA, these stars are estimated to only be a few hundred thousand years old.
While the new image lets us see past these pillars of gas more than ever before, they are still blocking a view to even greater galaxies beyond.
NASA revealed that as the pillars act as a curtain, dust in the area is “lit up by the collective light from the packed ‘party’ of stars that have burst free from the pillars.”
“It’s like standing in a well-lit room looking out a window – the interior light reflects on the pane, obscuring the scene outside and, in turn, illuminating the activity at the party inside.”
Tuesday’s image is not the first jaw-dropping photo captured by the James Webb Telescope this year.
In July, NASA revealed a photo collected by the Telescope that was deemed the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe ever taken.
The James Webb Space Telescope launched on Christmas Day in 2021.
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
