Facinating photos!

go to view them at:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/webb-telescope-shows-pillars-creation-150128350.html

Webb Telescope Shows the Pillars of Creation Like You’ve Never Seen Them
Before
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Isaac Schultz
Wed, October 19, 2022 at 8:01 AM·3 min read
The Pillars of Creation as seen by the Hubble and Webb Space Telescopes.

The Pillars of Creation as seen by Hubble telescope (left) and Webb
telescope (right).

The Webb Space Telescope has just imaged what might be its most iconic
target yet: the Pillars of Creation, a monumental arm of the Eagle Nebula.

The pillars are so-named for their magnitude. They are light-years-long
tendrils of gas and dust that reach out like the grand fingers of a
cosmic hand. The recent image, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera, or
NIRCam, highlights the bright red sites of new star births.

Small red dots on the edges of the pillars are baby stars—only a few
hundred thousand years old, according to the Webb team. The red,
lava-like streaks in the clouds are ejections from stars being formed.
These nascent gas balls send off jets of material that strike the gas in
the pillars, causing energetic hydrogen molecules in the system to glow.

The pillars sit in the Eagle Nebula, a cloud of dust and gas about 6,500
light-years from Earth. The entire nebula measures about 70 light-years
by 55 light-years; the Pillars of Creation are a roughly 5
light-year-long arm of the larger structure.

The Pillars of Creation are long tendrils of gas and dust, in which
stars are born.
The Pillars of Creation are long tendrils of gas and dust, in which
stars are born.

The Pillars of Creation in remarkable detail, seen by Webb telescope.

Though the nebula was discovered in 1745, the pillars only became
globally famous when they were imaged in glorious detail by the Hubble
Space Telescope in 1995. Hubble then re-imaged the site in visible light
in 2014. When seen side-by-side with Webb’s infrared view, it’s clear
how dazzling the new image is. (You also can check out full-resolution,
uncompressed versions of these images directly from the Space Telescope
Science Institute.)

The pillars—brown and turbid in Hubble’s view—appear luminous and orange
to Webb. The backdrop of gas and deep space turns from an opaque
turquoise to a bedazzlement of stars, shining through a sea of lapis
lazuli gas. That’s because Webb’s image highlights the hydrogen atoms in
the gas, which shine in blue light. The Webb telescope’s infrared eye
also penetrates through dense clouds of dust and gas, allowing it to see
previously unknown regions of star formation.

At the angle captured by Webb, it’s no stretch of the imagination to see
Michelangelo’s famous Creation of Adam evoked by the reach of the
massive pillars. The image also is a reminder of how dynamic space is,
even on massive scales: what appears resolute in Hubble’s view seems
much more animated from Webb’s perspective.

In the months to come, Webb will take more images that will key
researchers in to how stars are born, how galaxies evolve, the most
ancient light we can see, and even the structure of the planets nearest
to us.

You can keep track of what Webb is viewing at any given moment thanks to
this handy Twitter bot. Of course, keywords like “white dwarf” and
“spiral galaxies” don’t do a shred of justice to the objects they
describe. The majesty of space defies description, especially as seen
through the palantir that is Webb.

More: Are the Colors in Webb Telescope Images ‘Fake’?