It is the first time that this ghostly region where new stars are forming can be photographed.
The Space Telescope NASA James Webb offered an unprecedented image of the iconic Pillars of Creationa spooky-looking region where new stars form within dense clouds of gas and dust and from which now comes a much clearer vision.
This new photograph, released on Wednesday, the US agency said in a statement, “will help researchers renew their models of star formation by identifying much more accurate counts of newly formed stars.”
Over time, he added, “scientists will begin to develop a clearer understanding of how stars form and are ejected from these dusty clouds. over millions of years.”
The three columns of this formation are composed of fresh interstellar gas and dust that sometimes appear semi-transparent in near-infrared light.
NASA explained that although the pillars look like arches and columns “emerging from a desert landscape,” are filled with semi-transparent gas and dust and constantly changing.
The image located inside the great Eagle Nebula, That located 6,500 light years away, has as its protagonists the newly formed stars. They are the glowing red orbs that appear at the top of one of the pillars.
“When knots of sufficient mass form within the pillars of gas and dust, they begin to collapse under their own gravity, slowly heat up, and ultimately form new stars,” NASA said.
In turn, the wavy lines that look like lava on the edges of some pillars are ejections of stars that are still forming within the gas and dust.
Captured for the first time in 1995
The Pillars of Creation were first imaged in 1995 by the Hubble Space Telescope, launched in April 1990 from the Cape Canaveral base (USA) aboard the shuttle Discovery.
The James Webb is a joint NASA mission with the European (ESA) and Canadian (CSA) agencies and was launched in December last year.
It is the largest ever sent into space, offers a never-before-seen view of the universe at near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths, and will make it possible to study a wide variety of celestial objects, from neighboring galaxies to the most distant reaches of the universe.
EFE