The Pillars of Creation (Webb MIRI Image) by James Webb Space Telescope You can’t escape its clutches — just in time for #Halloween, the Pillars of Creation reach back out like a ghostly hand. (Some chilling perspective: these “fingers” are roughly 5 light-years long!) The eerie landscape is captured this time by the James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI). Mid-infrared light specializes in detailing where dust and gas is. Here, the densest areas of dust are the darkest shades of gray, while the red region toward the top is where the dust is diffuse and cooler. Don’t worry, the baby stars seen in Webb’s near-infrared view (released earlier this month) didn’t disappear. They’re just not easy to detect in mid-infrared! Instead, MIRI sees young stars with dusty cloaks — the crimson orbs at the pillars’ fringes — as well as scattered, aging blue stars. Hauntingly beautiful in any light, we can’t help but return to the Pillars of Creation over and over. And each time, we deepen our understanding of this region. With this new MIRI image, astronomers now have higher resolution data in mid-infrared light than ever before. Learn more: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/haunting-portrait-nasa-s-webb-reveals-dust-structure-in-pillars-of-creation Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI [Image description: Three prominent pillars of semi-opaque gas and dust, each in spectral shades of gray-blue, start at the bottom left and reach toward the top right. From left to right, each pillar is consecutively smaller. Together, they appear like a ghostly hand. Towards the top of the leftmost pillar, there is one prominent red star, with tiny spikes at its tip. Lower on this pillar, there are several darker areas of dust that jut out like protrusions, some also with stars that appear as small red dots. The other two pillars are below and to the right of the first pillar. The background of this scene takes on glowing shades of orange-red mixed with black, with the strongest bright orange hues dipping into a V shape at the top center of the image. Scattered throughout the image are a few dozen tiny bright white and blue stars. Larger stars appear like red orbs and are embedded in the pillars.] https://flic.kr/p/2nVLjwR
