Pillars of Creation
A now famous picture
from the Hubble Space Telescope
featured these star forming columns of cold gas and
dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula, dubbed the
Pillars of Creation.
This
James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam image
expands Hubble's exploration of that region in greater
detail and depth
inside the iconic stellar nursery.
Particularly stunning in Webb's near infrared view is the telltale
reddish emission from knots of material
undergoing gravitational collapse to form
stars within
the natal clouds.
The Eagle Nebula is
some 6,500 light-years distant.
The larger bright emission nebula is itself an
easy target for binoculars or small telescopes.
M16 lies along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy in a
nebula rich part of the sky, toward the
split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake).