![]() HST Left> Blue: F502N, Green: F657N, Red: F673N The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. Several filters were used to sample different wavelength ranges. These images are composites of separate exposures acquired by the WFC3 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope and the NIRCam instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope. Levay), and JWST data from proposal: 2739 (K. This image was created from HST data from proposal: 13926 (Z. Image is approximately 8 light-years across. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Hubble Heritage Project (STScI, AURA) ![]() The pillars are a small region within the Eagle Nebula, a vast star-forming region 6,500 light-years from Earth. It acts like thick smoke or fog, preventing us from peering into the deeper universe, where countless galaxies exist. Dust blocks the view in Hubble’s image, but the interstellar medium plays a major role in Webb’s. Although Hubble highlights many more thick layers of dust and Webb shows more of the stars, neither shows us the deeper universe. Near-infrared light can penetrate thick dust clouds, allowing us to learn so much more about this incredible scene.īoth views show us what is happening locally. By penetrating the dusty pillars, Webb also allows us to identify stars that have recently – or are about to – burst free. In contrast, the background light in Webb’s image appears in blue hues, which highlights the hydrogen atoms, and reveals an abundance of stars spread across the scene. These colors highlight the thickness of the dust all around the pillars, which obscures many more stars in the overall region. The background of this Hubble image is like a sunrise, beginning in yellows at the bottom, before transitioning to light green and deeper blues at the top. While the pillars of gas and dust seem darker and less penetrable in Hubble’s view, they appear more diaphanous in Webb’s. The thick, dusty brown pillars are no longer as opaque and many more red stars that are still forming come into view. The most complex, nail–biting sequence was unfolding a giant sun shield designed to block radiation from the sun, moon and Earth that would overwhelm the telescope's super sensitive instruments.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 above at left.Ī new, near-infrared-light view from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, at right, helps us peer through more of the dust in this star-forming region. In fact, the launch was so precise, the telescope will have extra manoeuvring fuel leftover to operate beyond its expected 10–year lifetime. Since it was launched on Christmas Day 2021, that sequence of events has so far proceeded as planned. Once in space, the unfolding sequence involved 50 major deployments with 344 of what the scientists call "single-point failure" items involving latches, hinges, motors, bearings, gears, cables and pulleys. This giant, super-sensitive instrument had to be made as lightweight as possible, yet strong enough to withstand the vibrations and G-forces of a rocket launch. There is no room for mistakes and no possibility of repair by astronauts if something goes wrong. This picture from a NASA TV broadcast shows the James Webb Space Telescope shortly after separating from the Ariane 5 rocket after launching from French Guiana, on December 25, 2021.
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