NASA has recently shared a spectacular 3D video of the ‘Pillars of Creation’, an active star-forming region within the Eagle Nebula. The video was created by compiling images captured by the NASA Webb Telescope. The pillars of creation have fascinated humans for decades, ever since they were first captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in the 1990s.
The 3D video enables viewers to fly past these pillars and experience their existence as a three-dimensional structure. The visible light images of the ‘Pillars of Creation’ have been captured by NASA’s Hubble telescope, whereas, infra-red photos have been captured by NASA’s Webb Telescope. The contrast between these two views helps scientists understand why we have more than one space telescope to observe different aspects of the same object.
The ‘Pillars of Creation’ are towering tendrils of cosmic dust and gas and sit at the heart of Eagle Nebula, originally known as M16. A nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas in space. Some nebulas are home to dust and gas thrown out by the explosion of a dying star, whereas some are new star formation regions, just like M16. The ‘Pillars of Creation’ hide newborn stars in their wispy columns. The region consists of gases like oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, etc. These clouds stretch nearly 4 to 5 light-years. The Eagle Nebula was discovered in 1745 by the Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux. The gas cloud is located 7,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Serpens.
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