PREVIEW

The Pillars of Creation are one of the most iconic and beautiful sights in deep space - now NASA has released a 3D visualisation allowing us to see inside this stunning part of the Eagle Nebula. Made famous in 1995 by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the Pillars of Creation are giant clouds where stars are born. Using data from NASA's Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, astronomers have created a comprehensive and detailed multiwavelength look at these towering celestial structures. The four Pillars of Creation, made primarily of cool molecular hydrogen and dust, are being eroded by the fierce winds and punishing ultraviolet light of nearby hot, young stars. The finger-like structures protruding from the top of the pillars are so big they are larger than our solar system! Within these fingers are embryonic stars. The tallest pillar stretches across three light-years, three-quarters of the distance between our Sun and the next nearest star. This is not an artistic interpretation but rather is based on observational data from a science paper led by Anna McLeod, an associate professor at the University of Durham in the U.K. The new visualisation also shows how two of the world's most powerful space telescopes can work together to provide a more complex and holistic portrait of the pillars. Hubble sees objects that glow in visible light, at thousands of degrees. Webb's infrared vision, which is sensitive to cooler objects with temperatures of just hundreds of degrees pierces through obscuring dust to see stars embedded in the pillars.