NASA Releases New 3D Visualization of The Pillars of Creation
TapTechNews JUNE 28th - The Pillars of Creation, a part of the Eagle Nebula (also known as M16 Nebula), is about 6,500 light-years away from the Earth. It was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on April 1, 1995. Astrobiologists call it indescribably spectacular.
It can be said that every famous astronomical telescope will try to photograph the Pillars of Creation in an attempt to understand the physical and chemical effects when new stars are born in the huge gas and dust clouds. (The Pillars of Creation consists of 3 gas and dust pillars, and new stars are gestating at the pillar tips.)
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) yesterday released a brand-new 3D visualization video about the Pillars of Creation on YouTube, and the public can observe this astronomical wonder in full 360 degrees under visible and infrared lights.
NASA says that this video is achieved by combining the data of the Hubble and Webb space telescopes, providing a more complex and comprehensive image of the Pillars of Creation. This is also the most comprehensive and detailed multi-band dynamic image of these star birthplaces to date.
Frank Summers, the chief visualization scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, explains, As we fly over these pillars, the audience can better experience their three-dimensional structure and observe their different appearances under the Hubble's visible light view and Webb's infrared light view.
Frank Summers led the dynamic imaging development team of NASA's Learn the Universe project. This contrast helps people understand why we need more than one space telescope to observe different aspects of the same object.
Unlike artistic renderings, this video is based on observational data from scientific papers and is provided by a research team led by Dr. Anna McLeod, an associate professor at Durham University in the UK. Ms. McLeod also serves as the scientific advisor for this video project.
Greg Bacon, the production director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), said, We always wanted to present the Pillars of Creation in 3D, and the data of the Webb telescope combined with the data of the Hubble telescope enables us to observe these pillars more comprehensively and detailedly.
The Pillars of Creation are mainly composed of cold molecular hydrogen and dust, but they are being eroded by the intense stellar winds and ultraviolet rays from those nearby hot and young stars. These pillars have finger-like structures protruding from their tips, and the scale is even larger than that of the solar system.
Scientists believe that embryonic stars may be gestating inside these fingers, and the tallest finger pillar is up to 3 light-years long, which is equivalent to three quarters of the distance from our solar system to the nearest neighboring star.
