The pictures show where the stars are born

The “Pillars of Creation“It is a legendary star formation about 6,500 light-years away Eagle Nebuladated 1995 Hubble Space Telescope has been registered. Now this delivers James Webb Telescope Once again amazing photos.

JWST is technically better than the Hubble telescope

The technical novelty of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is that it can see through the nebula better because it also records radiation in the nebula. infrared range. This is not blocked by clouds of dust and gas like visible light, but it can penetrate through them.

“I’ve been studying the Eagle Nebula since the mid-1990s, trying to look inside the light-year plumes,” Mark McCogren, ESA’s chief science advisor to ESA, told ESA. BBC News. “I always knew James Webb’s photos would be amazing. And they are.”

Webb’s Pillars of Creation new recordings were made using a . file Nircam (Near Infrared Camera) – JWST’s main camera, which can also capture radiation in the near infrared spectrum. As a result, they are still young stars visible, which is just beginning to appear.

Looking at the newly born stars

At the tops of the columns, for example, there are accumulations of dust and gases. If these clusters are heavy enough, they collapse under their own weight and form new stars. The Crimson glowing areas In the nebula come from stars that have just formed. These stars can be well seen in The second and third corner From the top. You are only a few 100,000 years Old – by astrological standards, they are still in the birth canal.

The researchers are now using images from JWST to study star formations in the Eagle Nebula in more detail. Over time, you should better understand which one Requirements Stars can form in these dust clouds.