NASA shows ‘horrible’ photo of Pillars of Creation
NASA has released a new ‘horrifying’ image of the Pillars of Creation, a region of gas clouds 6,500 light-years from Earth. The image was taken with the MIRI instrument of the James Webb telescope and shows only the light waves present from the mid-infrared spectrum.
The image shows how the pillars of the Pillars of Creation appear to float in isolation in an environment of dust and gas. That comes according to NASA because already formed stars in the vicinity emit less mid-infrared light and can therefore hardly be registered by the Mid-Infrared Instrument. This instrument only registers light rays from the mid-infrared spectrum and is said to be extremely suitable for detecting dust and gas. The stars, which are clearly visible in an earlier image of the Pillars of Creation, would also contain much less dust and gas in their vicinity compared to younger stars, which means that the MIRI instrument can no longer register them.
The dark gray areas in the image are the zones with the most dust and gas, according to the US Space Agency. In the red zones, the dust is more diffuse and colder. There is also no in the image interstellar matter from the interstellar medium. According to NASA, this is in turn because that zone contains too much gas and dust, so that the mid-infrared light does not reach far enough to be registered by the MIRI instrument.
In 1995, the Hubble Telescope recorded the Pillars of Creation for the first time on sensitive plate. In 2014 the pillar-shaped gas clouds have been re-imaged. NASA has used the James Webb Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera to capture a previously recent image of the gas cloud. The Pillars of Creation, or Eagle Nebula Messier 16, is a region of space with gas clouds about 6,500 light-years from Earth in which new stars are being formed.
Image Pillars of Creation taken with Mid-Infrared Instrument aboard James Webb telescope