New infrared images from the James Webb Telescope’s ‘Pillars of Creation’ reveal star-creating cosmic dust and massive galaxy clusters
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared image of the Pillars of Creation.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
The James Webb Space Telescope released a new, mid-infrared rendering of the Pillars of Creation on Friday.
The image allowed scientists to see how much cosmic dust — needed to create stars — is in the region.
Other images released this month include galaxy pair VV 191 and cosmic dust that looks like tree rings.
The James Webb Space Telescope released a new, mid-infrared view of the “Pillars of Creation” on Friday, revealing two types of stars and giving researchers a chance to study the cosmic dust in the massive gas columns.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared image of the Pillars of Creation.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
The new photos show a cluster of stars 5.6 billion light-years away. The light from the MACS0647-JD system is bent and magnified by the massive gravity of galaxy cluster MACS0647.
The massive gravity of galaxy cluster MACS0647 acts as a cosmic lens to bend and magnify light from the more distant MACS0647-JD system. It also triple-lens the JD system, making the image appear in three different locations. These images, which are marked with white boxes, are marked with JD1, JD2, and JD3; zoomed-in views are shown in the panels on the right. In this image from Webb’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument, blue was mapped to wavelengths of 1.15 and 1.5 microns (F115W, F150W), green to wavelengths of 2.0 and 2.77 microns (F200W, F277W) and red at wavelengths of 3.65 and 4.44 microns (F365W, F444W).SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, CSA, Dan Coe (STScI), Rebecca Larson (UT), Yu-Yang Hsiao (JHU) IMAGE PROCESSING: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Earlier this month, the latest photos of the Pillars of Creation were released, showing a sky full of stars previously invisible to fainter telescopes.
The Pillars of Creation can be seen in a kaleidoscope of colors in the near infrared light of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The pillars look like arches and spires rising from a desert landscape, but are filled with semi-transparent gas and dust and are constantly changing. This is an area where young stars are forming – or have barely burst out of their dusty cocoons as they continue to form.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI).
A side-by-side comparison shows the extra detail revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope, compared to the 2014 Hubble Space Telescope image.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope made the Pillars of Creation famous with its first image in 1995, but revisited the scene in 2014 to reveal a sharper, wider view in visible light, shown at the top left. A new near-infrared light image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, right, helps us see through more dust in this star-forming region. The thick, dusty brown pillars are less opaque and many more red stars come into view.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI).
Cosmic dust in the sky created a ripple resembling tree rings, visible around Wolf-Rayet 140, a binary star system.
Shells of cosmic dust created by the interaction of binary stars appear as tree rings around Wolf-Rayet 140.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL, Caltech
Near infrared light from Webb, and ultraviolet and visible light from Hubble, show “interacting” galaxies that are actually very far apart.
This image of galaxy pair VV 191 contains near infrared light from Webb and ultraviolet and visible light from Hubble.NASA, ESA, CSA, Rogier Windhorst (ASU), William Keel (University of Alabama), Stuart Wyithe (University of Melbourne), JWST PEARLS Team, Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
