James Webb Telescope unveils a new look at the Pillars of Creation

Nearly 30 years ago, the Pillars of Creation stunned the astronomical world when they were captured by NASAthe famous Hubble Space Telescope.

Now a new generation can enjoy a fresh look at the terrifying scene after James Webb, the US space agency’s $10bn (£7.4bn) super space telescope, has imaged the same finger-like tendrils of gas and dust.

Resembling a ghostly hand, the Pillars of Creation are part of the Eagle Nebula – which is 6,500 light-years from Earth – and are known to be a source of star formation.

This week, NASA and the European Space Agency revealed another look at the pillars from Webb’s keen eyes.

The latest image was taken in mid-infrared light, which blocks the brightness of stars and captures only the flowing gas and dust. This provided a new way to experience and understand the stunning formation.

Webb has instruments that look in different wavelengths of infrared.

In October, experts released a Pillars of Creation image from the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), before following it up with an image from the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).

They’ve now merged the images into a haunting image that shows the best of both views, with glowing dust fringes where young stars are beginning to form.

NIRCam reveals newly formed stars in orange outside the pillars, while MRI shows the dust layers in the formation.

“This is one of the reasons why the region is flooded with stars — dust is a key ingredient of star formation,” NASA said.

The glowing red fingertip on the second pillar suggests active star formation, but the stars are still babies — NASA estimates they’re only a few 100,000 years old.

They take millions of years to fully form.

“Combining images of the iconic Pillars of Creation from two cameras aboard NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has framed the universe in its infrared glory,” the Webb team wrote.

They said it “set this star-forming region on fire with new details.”

When knots of gas and dust of sufficient mass form inside the pillars, they begin to collapse under their own gravity, slowly heat up and eventually form new stars.

“Newly formed stars are especially visible at the edges of the top two pillars – they almost burst onto the scene,” said the Webb team.

“Almost everything you see in this scene is local.

‘The distant universe is largely obscured from our view, both by the interstellar medium, which consists of sparse gas and dust between the stars, and by a thick dust lane in our Milky Way galaxy.

“The result is that the stars are central to Webb’s view of the Pillars of Creation.”

The Pillars of Creation are located in the constellation Serpens.

This one contains a young hot star cluster, NGC6611, visible with modest backyard telescopes, shaping and illuminating the surrounding gas and dust, resulting in a massive hollowed-out cavity and pillars, each several light years long.

The 1995 Hubble image hinted that new stars were being born within the pillars. Due to obscuring dust, Hubble’s visible-light image couldn’t look in and prove that young stars were forming.

NASA then sent Hubble back for a second visit so they could compare the two images.

Astronomers noticed changes in a jet-like feature streaking away from one of the newborn stars within the pillars.

The jet grew 60 billion miles longer in the time between observations, suggesting material in the jet was traveling at about 450,000 miles per hour.