The new jewel of astronomical observation has pointed its lens towards the “Pillars of Creation”, which had been immortalized 27 years ago by Hubble, another famous space telescope.
In front of a scintillating sky, gigantic columns of clouds were seen rising there, traversed by powerful energies: structures several light-years high full of stars in formation. With this grandiloquent image, even a little kitsch, with its high-sounding name (the pillars of creation), science was trying to live up to the great myths of origins. The new telescope star, at $10 billion, couldn’t miss this icon.
One in the near infrared, which details the dust surrounding nascent stars. She is fascinating. On a velvety ocher background, the bluish columns have become so precise that one is struck by pareidolia: one cannot help but see faces in these clouds. The other, in the deeper infrared, pierces these clouds to reveal the birth of large stars inside, completely invisible to Hubble. Spectacular. And these two photos tell us much more than the Hubble one about the origin of the worlds.
Observing the birth of stars is in fact one of the main objectives of JWST (James Webb Space Telescope), in addition to observing the distant universe and exoplanets. We know very little about how clouds collapse: stars are born hidden in baskets of dust. With its infrared vision, JWST, precisely, sees these births. And with its spectroscopic tools, it can analyze the chemical elements present on site, during the creation of these worlds.
More than a name, more than a photo, the Pillars of Creation will become a story. With JWST, even more than with Hubble, science really rises to the height of the great myths.
Image of gas and dust cloud structure – mid infrared
Image of newborn stars – true infrared
/2022/11/04/phpTDq4S7.png)