Pillars of Creation are massive columns of gas and dust located in the Eagle Nebula, which lies about 6,500 light years from Earth.
The pillars were first captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 and revisited in 2014, and have since become one of the most iconic and studied objects in astronomy.
Webb’s near-infrared image was fused with its mid-infrared image, setting this star-forming region ablaze with new details.
Near-infrared Camera reveals thousands of newly formed stars – look for bright orange spheres that lie just outside the dusty pillars.
In mid-infrared light, the dust is on full display.
Most apparent in the layers of diffuse, orange dust that drape the top of the image.
The densest regions of dust are cast in deep indigo hues, obscuring our view of the activities inside the dense pillars.
Dust also makes up the spire-like pillars that extend from the bottom left to the top right.
This is one of the reasons why the region is overflowing with stars – dust is a major ingredient of star formation.
When knots of gas and dust with sufficient mass form in the pillars, they begin to collapse under their own gravitational attraction, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars.
Newly formed stars are especially apparent at the edges of the top two pillars.
At the top edge of the second pillar, undulating detail in red hints at even more embedded stars. These are even younger, and are quite active as they form.
The lava-like regions capture their periodic ejections.
As stars form, they periodically send out supersonic jets that can interact within clouds of material, like these thick pillars of gas and dust.
These young stars are estimated to be only a few hundred thousand years old, and will continue to form for millions of years.
A stunning, high-resolution look at the pillars, revealing new details and insights into the processes of star formation and evolution.

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