The Pillars of Creation This is how the photograph that shows a trio of enormous ‘sky towers’ which are located approximately 6,500 light years from Earth, in the Eagle Nebula. They received that name because these formations of interstellar gas and dust They are found in the process of creating new stars and due to their peculiar elongated shape. The image was taken by astronomers Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen on April 1, 1995 using the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, WFPC2 for its acronym in English, for the space telescope Hubble. It is one of the most famous photographs ever taken of the universe that surrounds us due to its beauty and spectacular nature. Now, almost 30 years later, the POT has created a 3D visualization showing the pillars in different wavelengths, visible and infrared, from photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope James Webb.
The two-and-a-half-minute video begins with a zoomed-in view of the Pillars of Creation captured by Hubble under visible light. Shortly after, it switches to a view infrared captured by the Webb. Both alternate while the camera It approaches the pillars to show them up close, surrounds their ‘top’, and finally moves away a few light years, showing a broader perspective of what surrounds these formations..
The visualization is the product of computer-generated images from photographs that Hubble and Webb have taken over the years. 2015commemorating 25 years of Hubble in orbit, NASA released new images in infrared and visible light captured with the WFPC3with a better quality than the original. Those made by Webb, using the mid-infrared instrument, MIRIand near infrared, NIRCam, NIRSpec and NIRISSoffer a level of detail superior to what Hubble can obtain.
In addition to the captured images, the video is based on Observational data collected by the Dr. Anna McLeod, an astronomer at Durham University in the United Kingdom and scientific advisor to the video project. The set of all these data is the skeleton on which NASA has built 3D visualization.
NASA claims that this video of the Pillars of Creation is an excerpt that is part of a ‘longer, narrated video’ aimed at young people and families about the agency’s astrophysics missions. It has not revealed its title or when it will be released. The publication of the video has been accompanied by another surprise. If you have a 3D printer, you can print the Pillars of Creation from the STL files free from NASA.