Just about a week ago, we shared the news about NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope snapping a new photo at the Pillars of Creation. The cosmic structure refers to elephant trunks of interstellar gas and dust that are located in the Eagle Nebula. That’s more than 6,500 light-years away from our planet.
Since Halloween is just around the corner, NASA seems to be willing to celebrate it in a more “cosmic” way, if there is one. Using the enormous powers of its James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) once again, the space agency took another photo of the Pillars of Creation. This time, the imposing cosmic structure puts on a very scary ‘costume’, one that’s definitely suitable for Halloween:
James Webb Space Telescope snaps new, super-spooky image of Pillars of Creation https://t.co/NRMgKshbJv pic.twitter.com/EnBr8rhq5U
— SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) October 28, 2022
Mid-infrared is used more to create this latter image of the Pillars of Creation.
An official statement from the ESA (European Space Agency) says as Space.com quotes:
Many stars are actively forming in these dense blue-grey pillars. When knots of gas and dust with sufficient mass form in these regions, they begin to collapse under their own gravitational attraction, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars.
The James Webb Space Telescope was specially designed to look deeper and more efficiently into the Universe’s galaxies than ever before. Webb is considered the successor of Hubble. What’s a bit funny is that Hubble was the first telescope that snapped the first photo of the Pillars of Creation. It happened back in 1995, and you might have already guessed the reason behind the name ‘Pillars of Creation.’ The moniker refers to the fact that the cosmic structure contains enough gas and dust to undergo the process of creating new stars.
There are about 100 billion stars in the entire Milky Way. Of course, that’s only what astronomers estimate, as it’s close to impossible to count all of the stars that exist in our galaxy.
