The Pillars of Creation in a New Spectacular Image

ADS HERE Known as the Pillars of Creation, located in the Eagle Nebula, 6,500 light years from earth. The Herschel telescope has achieved an impressive picture of the Eagle Nebula, a true icon for space lovers.

Among the thousands and thousands of extraordinary images that telescopes give us every day, no one in particular that has always been my favorite. It was taken in 1995 by the Hubble Space Telescope and has since become a true icon for space lovers. This is a "small" portion of the Eagle Nebula, or M16, at 6,500 light years from earth. And I put quotes around "small" because in reality the size of that slice of heaven is about five light years, or whatever it is, almost fifty trillion miles.

The Hubble image showed us huge columns of dust and gas whose interior is the miracle of the birth of new stars. Not surprisingly this special region of our galaxy known as NGC6611, was baptized with the name of "The Pillars of Creation".

Now, the Herschel Space Telescope, European Space Agency (ESA) has achieved a spectacular new image of the Eagle Nebula. Not only for its spectacular beauty that is undeniable, but also because it complements and adds new and valuable information about this magical region of the Milky Way.

The Pillars of Creation in 2012 by ESA

The historical and Hubble image (at the small picture), taken in the visible spectrum (ie, as we would with our own eyes), suggests that there exists a "hotbed" of stars, a place where new stars condense, ignite and begin to shine. However, Proia dark clouds of gas does not allow a direct view of the "birth".

But the new image of Herschel has no such problem as it is taken in the range of infrared wavelengths through which researchers can penetrate through the dark cosmic dust and see what happens inside the Pillars of Creation.

The Pillars of Creation by Hubble in 1995

And it confirms what we have allowed the Hubble suspect, the brilliant "buds" of gas and dust that surround the newly formed stars. Sometimes, even the cover is opened and you can see the young star shining inside.
Explosion of a supernova

To have all the information possible, Herschel data have also been combined with another major telescopes ESA's XMM-Newton, which operates in the range of X-rays and is able to see, therefore, the powerful radiation emissions generated by the young and hot new stars. This shows the XMM-Newton is shown in the image as a constellation of bright spots near the center of the image.

The new data also suggest that at least one of the new and massive stars in NGC6611 as a supernova exploded some 6,000 years ago, generating a shock wave that opened wide cracks in the pillars. Because of the distance that is the Eagle Nebula from Earth, the partial destruction of the pillars will not be visible from earth until several hundred years.

On this page of the ESA is possible to see all the different images that have been done so far of The Pillars of Creation. ADS HERE