The Pillars of Creation 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.
Newly formed stars are the scene-stealers in this Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image. These are the bright red orbs that sometimes appear with eight diffraction spikes. When knots with sufficient mass form within the pillars, they begin to collapse under their own gravity, slowly heat up, and eventually begin shining brightly.
Along the edges of the pillars are wavy lines that look like lava. These are ejections from stars that are still forming. Young stars periodically shoot out supersonic jets that can interact within clouds of material, like these thick pillars of gas and dust. This sometimes also results in bow shocks, which can form wavy patterns like a boat does as it moves through water. These young stars are estimated to be only a few hundred thousand years old, and will continue to form for millions of years
Although it may appear that near-infrared light has allowed Webb to “pierce through” the background to reveal great cosmic distances beyond the pillars, the interstellar medium stands in the way, like a drawn curtain.
This is also the reason why there are almost no distant galaxies in this view. This translucent layer of gas blocks our view of the deeper universe. Plus, dust 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.
Webb’s new view of the Pillars of Creation will help researchers revamp models of star formation. By identifying far more precise star populations, along with the quantities of gas and dust in the region, they will begin to build a clearer understanding of how stars form and burst out of these clouds over millions of years.
The Pillars of Creation is a small region within the vast Eagle Nebula, which lies 6,500 light-years away.
Webb’s NIRCam was built by a team at the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center.
James Webb Space Telescope
Credits:
SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
IMAGE PROCESSING: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
"The team at the Jodrell Plank Observatory has been amazed by the quality of the data being produced by the James Webb Space Telescope. The above image shows an emission nebula in the constellation Serpens that can be seen from the Jodrell Plank Observatory during the Summer. Imaging in the near infra-red has enabled the views of embryonic stars, where fusion has just commenced, to be seen through the copious clouds of dust. The detail visible is just astonishing and a tribute to the engineers and scientists that designed and constructed the James Webb Space Telescope and got it into space and a stable orbit" - Joel Cairo CEO o the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
"I have been asked many times as to whether the colours shown in space images are 'real' or what you would see with your eye. In truth your eye-brain combination is a fabulous bit of kit but does not function well in colour under low light conditions. The eye is most sensitive to green light at 555nm. so when looking through the eyepiece of a telescope at faint objects like nebula, most look green. Visible light is electro-magnetic radiation between the wavelengths 400 to 700 nanometers(nm). Below 400nm there is Ultra violet, X-ray and Gamma radiation. Above 700nm there is infra-red , microwave and radio radiation.
Scientists and engineers design cameras to capture electromagnetic radiation in greyscale at different ranges of wavelengths. They also incorporate filters with these cameras which allow parts of the range to be separated out and assigned a colour. The colour camera on your phone works this way with red, green and blue filters overlaid on a greyscale imaging chip.
The NIRCam mid infra- red camera used to capture the above image used several filters to sample different infra-red wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Purple: F090W, Blue: F187N, Cyan: F200W, Yellow: F335M, Orange: F444W, Red: F470N." - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
