If you ever want to take a walk into deep space, this may be as close as you get.
In this stunning animation, NASA lets viewers wander through the trunks of the ‘Pillars of Creation’ in a nebula 6,500 light-years from Earth.
This is the most detailed and comprehensive video ever taken of these star clouds, described as ‘towering tendrils’ of cosmic dust and gas.
This is made possible by combining observations from NASA’s two most powerful space telescopes, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Hubble Space Telescope.
And with the JWST’s infrared spectrum, you can even look into the three light-year high pillars to see the birth of young stars.
This animation was created by combining observations from the Hubble Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. In this image you can see a comparison between the two different observations
This groundbreaking animation captures the 3D structure of these massive formations for the first time, allowing viewers to fly through light-years of space.
However, this is not merely an artist’s imaginative impression, but a work of scientific research.
Thanks to the observations of Anna McLeod, associate professor at the University of Durham, NASA was able to accurately reconstruct the arrangement of the pillars.
Rendered in 3D, you can clearly see that the pillars are not in a straight line, but actually extend over a large area of space.
Frank Summers, chief visualization scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), says: “By flying past and between the pillars, viewers experience their three-dimensional structure and see how they look different in Hubble’s visible light than in the Webb image. infrared light display.’
The Pillars of Creation are part of the Eagle Nebula, a structure just under 7,000 light-years from Earth that was first observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1985.
This animation was created by combining observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (left), which takes images in the infrared spectrum, with images of the visible light spectrum from the Hubble Telescope (right).
This latest animation, however, combines images taken by Hubble with the latest observations from the JWST.
This not only captures the pillars of creation in the highest detail ever, but also provides a new perspective on the formation of stars like our own Sun.
Each of the three pillars consists of cold molecular hydrogen and clouds of interstellar dust.
These vast clouds, which stretch for free light-years in length – three-quarters of the distance from our sun to the nearest star – make perfect stellar nurseries.
The Pillars of Creation are located 6,500 light-years away in a regional space known as the Eagle Nebula
Thanks to the 3D animation, viewers can see that the pillars are not flat, but are in fact spread out over a large regional space
While the insides of these structures are hidden in the visible light spectrum, infrared light penetrates the thick dust.
Mr Summers says: ‘The contrast helps them understand why we have more than one space telescope to observe different aspects of the same object.’
Using the JWST, we can collect information in the infrared spectrum and thus look into the dust clouds and observe young stars in different stages of growth.
In the animation you can see these as bright spots of light visible through the dust or clearly visible in the infrared spectrum.
the visible light spectrum clearly shows the clouds of dust and cool molecular hydrogen that make up the Pillars of Creation
Infrared images allow scientists to peer into the dust clouds and see protostars in the early stages of formation
One of the pillars shows a brand new star ejecting a plume of material into space, while the largest pillar shows a ‘protostar’ (a very young star that is still accumulating mass).
Mark Clampin, director of astrophysics at NASA Headquarters in Washington, says: ‘When we combine observations from NASA’s space telescopes across different wavelengths of light, we broaden our understanding of the universe.
‘The Pillars of Creation region continues to provide new insights that sharpen our understanding of star formation.
“Thanks to this new visualization, everyone can experience this rich, enchanting landscape in a new way.”
The Pillars of Creation offer one of the most famous cosmic views in astronomical history
The original Hubble Space Telescope image of the famous Pillars of Creation was taken twenty years ago and immediately became one of the most famous and evocative photographs of it.
The protruding features, along with the nearby star cluster NGC 6611, are part of a star-forming region called the Eagle Nebula, also known as Messier 16 or M16.
Resembling a ghostly hand, the Pillars of Creation are part of the Eagle Nebula – which is 6,500 light-years away from Earth – and are known to be a source of star formation.
The nebula and its associated objects are located about 7,000 light-years away in the constellation Serpent (Serpent).
The Pillars of Creation are a classic example of the column-like shapes that develop in the gigantic clouds of gas and dust that are the birthplaces of new stars.
The columns form when immense, newly formed blue-white O and B stars emit intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds that blow away less dense material from their surroundings.
However, denser gas and dust bubbles can resist this erosion for longer.
Behind such thicker dust bags, material is shielded from the bright, destructive light of the O and B stars.
This shielding creates dark ‘tails’ or ‘elephant trunks’, which we see as the dark body of a pillar pointing away from the bright stars.