James Webb Space Telescope image shows ‘Pillars of Creation’ in stunning detail

The pillars are made up of cool interstellar gas and dust where new stars form

Uranus is surrounded by 13 rings and 27 small moons as it rotates at a nearly 90-degree angle from the plane of its orbit. Photo: Nasa

Complex organic molecules similar to smoke or smog in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years from Earth. Photo: Nasa

A delicate image of dust structures and bright star clusters taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. Photo: Nasa

Saturn has seven rings with several gaps and divisions between them, as well as 53 known moons. Photo: Nasa

Star cluster NGC 346, spiral galaxies NGC 1672 and Messier 74, and the Pillars of Creation, towering tendrils of cosmic dust and gas at the heart of the Eagle Nebula. Photo: Nasa

An infrared image of Neptune, the only planet in our solar system not visible to the naked eye. Photo: Nasa

Every eight years, the two stars in this image are brought together by their orbits – creating colliding streams of gas that, under the right conditions, form a new ring of dust. Photo: Nasa

A part of the Orion Nebula known as the Orion Bar. Photo: Nasa

A crowded field of galaxies, along with stars crowned with the James Webb Space Telescope's signature six-pointed diffraction spikes. Photo: Nasa

The NGC 3256 spiral galaxy was formed after a collision of two massive galaxies about 500 million years ago. Photo: Nasa

The Wolf-Rayet 124 star, featured in an image combining near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths of light. Photo: Nasa

An hourglass-shaped cloud of dust and gas is illuminated by light from a protostar. Photo: Nasa

Two views of the Southern Ring Nebula, which show the planetary nebula as a misshapen oval. Photo: Nasa

A composite image of the Cartwheel Galaxy captured by the James Webb Space Telescope in August 2022. AFP

A cluster of stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, near the Milky Way. Photo: JWST

A colour composite image of the Messier 74 galaxy. Photo: JWST

The gravity of galaxy cluster MACS0647 bends and magnifies light from the more distant MACS0647-JD. Photo: Nasa

The 'Pillars of Creation' — clouds of hydrogen gas and dust 6,500 light years from Earth — captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, left, and James Webb Space Telescope. AP

Dust rings resembling a fingerprint created by a rare type of star and its companion. PA

Images of the asteroid Dimorphos hours after Nasa crashed a spacecraft into it in September 2022. EPA

Neptune and seven of its 14 known moons. AFP

Thousands of young stars in a stellar nursery called the Tarantula Nebula. Photo: Nasa

A image of an exoplanet — a gas giant with no rocky surface. Photo: Nasa, ESA and CSA

Glass-z13, the oldest galaxy to be detected, was formed about 300 million years after the Big Bang. Photo: JWST

Jupiter and its moon Europa. Photo: Nasa

Jupiter and its moons Europa, Thebe and Metis. Photo: Nasa

Another image of Jupiter and some of its 79 moons. Photo: Nasa

An image of galaxy cluster Smacs 0723 taken by the James Webb telescope. Photo: Nasa

Stephan’s Quintet is an area in space that has five galaxies. Photo: JWST

The 'Cosmic Cliffs' of the Carina Nebula. Photo: JWST

An anniversary image shows the birth of a star in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. Photo: Nasa

A new image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope shows the “Pillars of Creation” in remarkable detail.

The three-dimensional pillars look like majestic rock formations rising out of a desert landscape.

But they are actually made up of cool interstellar gas and dust that sometimes appear semi-transparent in near-infrared light.

The area in space also shows new stars forming within these dense clouds of gas and dust.

“Webb’s new view of the Pillars of Creation, which were first made famous when imaged by Nasa’s Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, will help researchers revamp their models of star formation by identifying far more precise counts of newly formed stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust in the region,” Nasa said.

“Over time, they will begin to build a clearer understanding of how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years.”

The image was captured by Webb’s near-infrared camera, a science instrument that captures light invisible to the human eye.

Located in the constellation Serpens, about 7,000 light-years from Earth, the Pillars of Creation are filled with young stars that are forming.

“What about those wavy lines that look like lava at the edges of some pillars? These are ejections from stars that are still forming within the gas and dust,” Nasa said.

“Young stars periodically shoot out supersonic jets that collide with clouds of material, like these thick pillars.

“This sometimes also results in bow shocks, which can form wavy patterns like a boat does as it moves through water.”

The Webb telescope was launched into space on Christmas Day last year and began its science operations earlier this year.

Since then, it has been beaming back stunning images that are helping scientists better understand the mysteries of the universe.

The first image from the telescope was revealed by US President Joe Biden on July 11. It showed the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it was 4.6 billion years ago.

On July 20, it detected the oldest known galaxy in the universe, called Glass-z13, which was formed about 300 million years after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.

This breaks the record set by its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, which spotted GN-z11, a galaxy that was formed 400 million years after the birth of the universe.