The James Webb Space Telescope has captured the 'Pillars of Creation' in mid-infrared light for the first time, revealing a new look at this famous stellar cradle.
The so-called Pillars of Creation are one of the major star-forming regions of the Milky Way. In the structures about 6500 light-years away, sun-like stars are continuously formed from gases and dust particles. The individual pillars are several light years high and thus larger than our entire solar system. Thousands upon thousands of stars have already formed in this region. The shimmering around the edges of the pillars still indicates the activity within them.
This stellar cradle was previously imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 and 2014, but the new Webb Telescope images are for the first time in the mid-infrared light range, providing new insights. This wavelength can visualize hot gas and dust in fine detail. That's why the image mainly shows stars that are still surrounded by a dust shell - the purple balls at the edges. The blue stars are older and have mostly shed their layers of gas and dust.
Areas where the dust is most dense are shown in dark gray in the photo. In the red area at the top edge of the image, the dust is less compact and cooler. With each new image of the pillars at different resolutions or wavelengths, astronomers learn more about this special region and the births of stars.