One of the most iconic scenes of space has been updated in a new image from NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope. Located in the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16) in the Serpens constellation, the massive star-forming gas and dust region named the Pillars of Creation now reveals greater detail thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared camera. First observed in 1995 by the Hubble Telescope, the massive pillars of molecular hydrogen are located some 6,500 light-years away and are enormous in size.
The most left pillar stretches four light years in length alone — to put that into perspective, the tiny finger-like jets protruding from the main body are larger than our Solar System. While the original 1995 image was updated in 2014 for a shaper image that revealed further objects and more visible light, this most recent image cuts through the murky, brown gas and dust to reveal stars in their pre-main-sequence phase.
