On October 19th local time, NASA (NASA) released the " Pillar of Creation " image captured by Weber Space Telescope . It shows the clearest and complete cosmic activity to date that breeds new stars, paying tribute to the "Pillar of Creation" image of the Hubble Telescope 27 years ago - a photo that stunned the world when it debuted.
↑ The original image of the near-infrared camera (NIRCam) from Weber is black and white. After post-processing, it presents the cosmic color
After 27 years, the "Pillar of Creation" reappears
0, the tail end of the giant snake eagle-shaped nebula M16 is about 6,500 light years away from the Earth, and three giant pillars "rise" in the universe. This is one of the regions that produce the most stars in Milky Way galaxy, and the newborn stars are nurturing in dense clouds of gas and dust.
In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope captured the "Pillar of Creation" for the first time, and is well-known. But due to limited technology, it captured only a small number of stars at that time. After the image was remastered in 2014, the "column" was still relatively opaque and some stars could not be seen. The Hubble Space Telescope, which has been in service for an extra-term period in space, was unable to record a clearer scene because of its blurry lens.
At the end of December last year, the Weber Space Telescope, the successor of the Hubble , which cost more than 20 years, was launched into space to send back more images for humans to explore the universe.
↑The left picture is the "Pillar of Creation" taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in visible light in 1995. The right picture is the near-infrared image of the "Pillar of Creation" taken by the Weber Telescope this year. The two "Pillar of Creation" images taken by the Hubble Telescope this year. The columns of the visible light image on the left are darker. The background is opaque, with brown and yellow-green at the bottom and blue-purple at the top; a few stars of different sizes appear.
In contrast, in Weber's near-infrared image on the right, the "Pillar of Creation" is translucent, the color transition is more detailed, and the rust red and cherry red are more obvious. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set in dark brown, and the column tip profile shows a stunning reddish light. The background color is dark blue and black, and stars of various sizes dot the entire space. A large number of red stars that are still forming appear before us, and they are probably "only" hundreds of thousands of years old.
's latest "pillar of creation"
is an image 6,000 years ago?
Nebula is usually the birthplace of stars, so it is compared to the "cradle of life" in the universe. The gas and dust that make up the nebula will gradually gather and squeeze under certain conditions to form stars, and the remaining matter can also gather into planets orbiting stars. The colorful colors of the "Pillar of Creation" come from the light emitted by the new stars inside the nebula matter. As a star, the sun was also born from this type of "pillar of creation". Although we cannot see the sun's birth 5 billion years ago, we can simulate and imagine the formation of the sun through the "pillar of creation" of the Eagle Nebula.
"Pillar of Creation" creates a star inside, and its own mass will be deprived of part of it, and eventually it will lead to a complete collapse. Therefore, when nebula begins to nurture stars, it is actually heading towards its own destruction. This huge scale of "cycle of creation and destruction" seems to symbolize the existence of the "season" of the Milky Way.
In 2007, astronomers found a hot cloud of dust near the "Pillar of Creation". They believe that 6,000 years ago, a star at the end of his life span produced supernova and broke out , leaving behind this cloud of dust. Some astronomers, after calculations, believe that because of that supernova eruption, the "Pillar of Creation" was actually destroyed. But because it is too far away from us, it will take 1,000 years before humans can observe the destroyed "pillar of creation" on Earth. What we see now is the magnificent image that Weber photographed is actually it that has not been destroyed 6,000 years ago.
Other astronomers believe that the damage to the "Pillar of Creation" by a supernova explosion does not necessarily lead to its "death". Although it is destined to collapse, this process may be slow.
In short, this puzzle can only be left to human solutions 1,000 years later.
Chengdu astrophotography enthusiasts:
Hope we can also take more deep space photography
Since the 1930s, astronomers have gradually realized that the seemingly empty universe is full of interstellar matter with extremely low density. The varied and changing appearance of nebula makes it the subject of many excellent astrophotography works. Nebula itself contains luminous matter, and humans observe that it is often bright "emission nebula". The light in these nebula changes into infrared as it moves away from the earth, captured by Weber's near-infrared camera (NIRCam).
Such distant astronomical photography is called "deep space photography". Red Star News learned that after the release of the "Pillar of Creation" photographed by Weber Space Telescope, many domestic astrophotography enthusiasts felt "shocked". Zhu Yang, a astrophotography enthusiast in Chengdu, shared the "Pillar of Creation" he photographed and synthesized with his enthusiast friends. Like other deep space photography processes, he also first obtained black and white images, and then used professional software for post-processing.
↑Chengdu deep space photography enthusiast Zhu Yang and his friends took and synthesized the pillar of creation
Zhu Yang told the Red Star News reporter: "My picture is a SHO narrowband image. The original data is black and white, and it is colored through the late-stage synthesis of deep space processing software." Talking about his hobbies, Zhu Yang said: "Like astronomical photography and starry sky photography is also out of his curiosity and yearning for the unknown world, so taking the starry sky has become my hobby, it is like the seasoning in a dish."
Zhu Yang also expressed his expectations for domestic astronomical photography to Red Star News: "I definitely hope that more and more people will pay attention to astronomical photography, deep space photography, and starry sky."
Red Star News reporter Fan Xu Intern Deng Shuyi
Editor Ren Zhijiang Editor Xiao Ziqi
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