James Webb Space Telescope Reveals Hundreds of New Stars In the Iconic Pillar of Creation

The James Webb Space Telescope reveals an updated image of the iconic Pillars of Creation. Numerous newborn stars may be seen sparkling inside the well-known dust clouds.

NIRCam Captures New Images of Pillar of Creation

According to NASA, the newly discovered image shows the pillars in considerably greater detail. It produces a clear and fine structure of the clouds and has revealed hundreds of previously undetected stars twinkling all over the image.

Infrared light, which is essentially heat, was discovered by the telescope. With the help of the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the Webb Space Telescope, Webb can see through the clouds and observe protostars forming from merging dust.

The newly created protostars are the bright red orbs that are usually outside one of the dusty pillars and contain diffraction spikes. Within the pillars of gas and dust, knots that have sufficient mass start to collapse under their own gravitational pull, slowly heating up, and finally giving birth to new stars.

Webb's observations of the nebula greatly outperform Hubble, because of its considerably less powerful infrared detectors. In addition to offering a new level of sharpness and detail, Webb's observations also reveal many more stars throughout the surrounding universe and inside the clouds.

NASA posted the image on its Twitter account.

New Image Produces Accurate Star Count

According to Space.com, the majestic Pillars of Creation are column-shaped clouds of interstellar dust and gas that are located in the constellation Serpens. It is estimated to be around 7,000 light-years away, which is a component of the Eagle Nebula. It was first captured in 1995 by the Hubble Space Telescope.

By finding much more accurate counts of recently formed stars as well as the amounts of gas and dust in the vicinity, Webb's images will aid astronomers in updating their models of star formation. They will gradually develop a better grasp of how stars grow and burst in these dusty clouds over millions of years.

Webb's Pillars vs. Hubble's Pillars

Webb's pillars are softer and more finely structured, with vivid red lava flows surrounding the margins of some of the clouds. In contrast Hubble's pillars are dark and menacingly rising against a foggy background of a relatively empty universe.

There aren't any galaxies in this image, despite the appearance that Webb has used near-infrared light to break through the clouds and expose vast cosmic expanses beyond the pillars. The interstellar medium, a mixture of transparent gas and dust, gets in the way. It is illuminated by the combined light from the dense group of stars in the area and obscures our vision of the deeper universe.

The European Space Agency (ESA), which collaborates with NASA on the James Webb Space Telescope project, stated in a statement that these lava flows are actually material ejected by the developing stars.

Young stars emit supersonic jets periodically that slam into dense pillar-like clouds of matter. In some instances, it leads to bow shocks, which can create wavy patterns similar to what a boat makes as it moves through the water. The vibrant hydrogen molecules produced by jets and shocks are what give off the crimson glow.

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