- Jonathan Amos
- BBC science reporter
attributed to him, STSCI
Images from Hubble (left) and Webb (right): New telescope’s infrared detectors can see beyond plume dust
One of the most beautiful views of the universe has been revisited by the James Webb Space Super Telescope.
The so-called “pillars of creation” are dense clouds of hydrogen gas and dust in the constellation Serpent, 6,500 light-years from Earth.
This scene has already been photographed by other large telescopes. The most famous of these images are those taken in 1995 and 2014 by Hubble.
The James Webb Telescope gave us another incredible perspective: the plumes are the center of what astronomers call Messier 16 (M16), or the Eagle Nebula. This is an active region of stars.
attributed to him, NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
View taken by Webb: The plumes are made of hydrogen and dust
Webb, with his infrared detectors, can see the activity of newborn stars through plume dust, which typically causes light scattering effects.
“I’ve been studying the Eagle Nebula since the mid-1990s, trying to see ‘inside’ the light-year plumes shown by Hubble, looking for young stars inside. I always knew that when James Webb took pictures of it, it would be impressive. And they were,” said the professor. Mark McCogren, Senior Adviser at the European Space Agency, tells BBC News.
M16’s plumes are illuminated and sculpted by intense ultraviolet light from nearby massive stars.
attributed to him, Getty Images
The James Webb Telescope was sent into space in December 2021
This radiation also invalidates these formations: if you could magically teleport yourself to this location today, the pillars probably wouldn’t exist anymore.
We only see them because we look at them in the past. The light that Webb detected took 6,500 years to reach his lens.
James Webb is a collaborative project of the US, European and Canadian space agencies. It was launched in December last year and is considered the successor to the Hubble telescope.
