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Pillars of Creation is a photograph taken by theHubble Space Telescope that depictselephant trunks ofinterstellar gas and dust in theEagle Nebula of theSerpens constellation, some 6,500–7,000 light-years (2,000–2,100 pc; 61–66 Em) from Earth.[1] These elephant trunks had been discovered byJohn Charles Duncan in 1920 on a plate made with theMount Wilson Observatory 60-inch telescope.[2][3] They are so named because the gas and dust are in the process of creating new stars, while also being eroded by the light from nearby stars that have recently formed.[4]
Taken on April 1, 1995, it was named one of the top ten photographs from Hubble bySpace.com.[5] Theastronomers responsible for the photo were Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen fromArizona State University. The region was rephotographed byESA'sHerschel Space Observatory in 2011, again by Hubble in 2014 with a newer camera, and theJames Webb Space Telescope in 2022.
Released in 2007,Chandra X-ray Observatory (AXAF) had observed the area in 2001. It did not find many X-ray sources in the towers but was able to observe sources at various X-ray energy levels in the area from young stars.[6]
The image is noted for its global culture impact, being considered the most iconic picture taken by theHubble Space Telescope[7] andNational Geographic noting on its 20th anniversary that the image had been featured on everything from "t-shirts to coffee-mugs".[8]
The name is based on a phrase used byCharles Spurgeon in his 1857 sermon "The Condescension of Christ":[9]
In calling the Hubble's spectacular new image of the Eagle Nebula thePillars of Creation,NASA scientists were tapping a rich symbolic tradition with centuries of meaning, bringing it into the modern age. As much as we associate pillars with the classical temples of Greece and Rome, the concept of the pillars of creation – the very foundations that hold up the world and all that is in it – reverberates significantly in the Christian tradition. When William Jennings Bryan publishedThe World's Famous Orations in 1906, he included an 1857 sermon by London pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon titled "The Condescension of Christ". In it, Spurgeon uses the phrase to convey not only the physical world but also the force that keeps it all together, emanating from the divine: "And now wonder, ye angels," Spurgeon says of the birth of Christ, "the Infinite has become an infant; he, upon whose shoulders the universe doth hang, hangs at his mother's breast; He who created all things, and bears up the pillars of creation, hath now become so weak, that He must be carried by a woman!"
The pillars are composed of coolmolecular hydrogen and dust that are being eroded byphotoevaporation from theultraviolet light of relatively close and hotstars. The leftmost pillar is about fourlight-years in length.[10] The finger-like protrusions at the top of the clouds are larger than theSolar System, and are made visible by the shadows ofevaporating gaseous globules (EGGs), which shield the gas behind them from intense UV flux.[11] EGGs are themselves incubators of new stars.[12] The stars then emerge from the EGGs, which then are evaporated.
Images taken with theSpitzer Space Telescope uncovered a cloud of dust in the vicinity of the Pillars of Creation that hypothetically could be ashock wave produced by asupernova.[13] The appearance of the cloud suggests the supernova shockwave would have destroyed the Pillars of Creation 6,000 years ago. Given the distance of roughly 7,000 light-years between Earth and the Pillars of Creation and thatlight travels at a finite speed, this destruction should be visible from Earth in about 1,000 years.[14]
This interpretation of the hot dust has been disputed by an astronomer uninvolved in the Spitzer observations, who argues that a supernova should have resulted in strongerradio andx-ray radiation than has been observed, and that winds from massive stars could instead have heated the dust. If this is the case, the Pillars of Creation will undergo a more gradual erosion.[15]
Hubble's photo of the pillars is composed of 32 different images[16] from fourCCD sensors[17] in theWide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on board Hubble.[18] The photograph was made with light emitted by differentelements in the cloud and appears as a different color in the composite image: green forhydrogen, red for singlyionizedsulfur and blue for double-ionizedoxygen atoms.[4]
The "stair-shaped"[17] missing part of the picture at the top right corner originates from the fact that the camera for the top-right quadrant has a magnified view; when its images are scaled down to match the other three cameras, there is necessarily a gap in the rest of that quadrant.[17] This effect is also present on other WFPC2 images, and can be displayed at any corner depending on how the image has been re-oriented for publication.[19]
The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 was replaced by theWide Field Camera 3, and the former was taken back to Earth where it is displayed in a museum. It was replaced in 2009 as part of aSpace Shuttle mission (STS-125).
In 2010Herschel Space Observatory captured a new image of the Pillars of Creation infar-infrared wavelengths, which allows astronomers to look inside the pillars and structures in the region, and come to a much fuller understanding of the creative and destructive forces inside the Eagle Nebula.[20]
In celebration of the 25th anniversary since the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers assembled a larger and higher-resolution photograph of the Pillars of Creation which was unveiled in January 2015 at theAmerican Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. The image was photographed by the Hubble Telescope'sWide Field Camera 3, installed in 2009, invisible light. Aninfrared image was also taken.[21] The re-imaging has a wider view that shows more of the base of the nebulous columns.[8]
In October 2022, it was unveiled that theJames Webb Space Telescope captured a new image of the Pillars of Creation utilizing theNIRCam aboard the spacecraft. The image was able to capture ejections from the formation of young stars still in development in great detail, as seen by the red spots near the edges of the pillars.[22][23]
The most recent visualization of the Pillars of Creation was released by NASA in June 2024.[24] It is a 3D rendering created by images from both the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA described it as "the most comprehensive and detailed multiwavelength movie yet of this star-birthing region."[25]
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