20 years on, new Hubble re-captures iconic image in hi-def

20 years on, new Hubble re-captures iconic image in hi-def

New details offer insights to the origins of our own solar system

A lot has changed in 20 years. In 1995, anyone who could access the internet at all did so through a machine that sounded like cats passing through a wood chipper. Also in 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope captured one of its most iconic images, the so-called “Pillars of Creation.” 20 years later, some high-definition upgrades have allowed NASA to take and release a new, even more stunning version of the same image.

The “pillars” are really just columns of cold gas set aglow by clusters of young, massive stars. It’s not a particularly uncommon phenomenon, though few formations are as spectacular as “Pillars.” The newest photo, taken in greater detail and from a wider angle, also gives scientists more insight into the significance of the formation – thought to be the result of star formation (hence the name), new details reveal it’s not that simple.

“These pillars represent a very dynamic, active process,” said Paul Scowen of Arizona State University in Tempe. “The gas is not being passively heated up and gently wafting away into space. The gaseous pillars are actually getting ionized, a process by which electrons are stripped off of atoms, and heated up by radiation from the massive stars. And then they are being eroded by the stars’ strong winds and barrage of charged particles, which are literally sandblasting away the tops of these pillars.”

In the image, what appear to be the tips of the “fingers” are actually very dense clusters of dust and gas. Those clusters shadow the cooler gas below them, resulting in the column appearance. The top of the left-most “finger” shows a gas fragment that’s been heated and has begun to float away from the rest of the structure, indicating how turbulent things can be in star formation regions.

Beautiful as they are, scientists are actually more interested in the minor details, specifically the smaller wisps floating away from the main columns. They provide clues as to what’s really going on, astronomers say.

“There is the only one thing that can light up a neighborhood like this: massive stars kicking out enough horsepower in ultraviolet light to ionize the gas clouds and make them glow,” Scowen said. “Nebulous star-forming regions like M16 are the interstellar neon signs that say, ‘We just made a bunch of massive stars here.’ This was the first time we had directly seen observational evidence that the erosionary process, not only the radiation but the mechanical stripping away of the gas from the columns, was actually being seen.”

19 years later (the image was actually snapped in 2014), Scowen and his colleagues noticed that one of the jets has grown, indicating that it might be ejected debris from a newly formed star. Our Sun and solar system, Scowen says, may have been born out of similarly violent circumstances.

Image credit: NASA

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