Space telescope captures cosmic ‘Mountains of Creation’

Captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope’s infrared eyes, a new majestic image resembles the iconic “Pillars of Creation” picture taken of the Eagle Nebula in visible light by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. Both views feature star-forming clouds of cool gas and dust that have been sculpted into pillars by radiation and winds from hot, massive stars.

The Spitzer image shows the eastern edge of a region known as W5, near the Perseus constellation 7,000 light-years away. This region is dominated by a single massive star, whose location outside the pictured area is “pointed out” by the finger-like pillars. The pillars themselves are colossal, together resembling a mountain range. For comparison, the pillars in the Eagle Nebula are less than one-tenth their size.

The largest of the pillars seen by Spitzer entombs hundreds of never-before-seen embryonic stars, and the second largest contains dozens.

“We believe that the star clusters lighting up the tips of the pillars are essentially the offspring of the region’s single, massive star,” said Lori Allen, lead investigator of the new observations from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). “It appears that radiation and winds from the massive star triggered new stars to form.”

Spitzer was able to see the stars forming inside the pillars thanks to its infrared vision. Visible-light images of this same region show dark towers outlined by halos of light. The stars inside are cloaked by walls of dust. But infrared light coming from these stars can escape through the dust, providing astronomers with a new view.