April 24 marks exactly 30 years since the launch of the Discovery shuttle STS-31 with the Hubble Telescope (NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope). In honor of this event, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) decided to once again publish one of the most famous and spectacular images taken from the orbital observatory - a photograph of the “Pillars of Creation”.
Over the thirty years of operation, Hubble has transmitted to Earth a huge amount of scientific information, the importance of which is difficult to overestimate. The telescope “looked” at many stars, nebulae, galaxies and planets. In particular, a formation of amazing beauty was captured - the mentioned “Pillars of Creation”.
This structure is a star-forming region in the Eagle Nebula. It is located at a distance of approximately 7000 light years from Earth.
The “Pillars of Creation” consist primarily of cold molecular hydrogen and dust. Under the influence of gravity, condensations are formed in the gas and dust cloud, in which stars are born.
The most famous photograph of the “Pillars of Creation” in the visible range (in the first illustration). NASA offers to look at this structure in infrared light. In this image, the pillars look like ominous, ghostly structures visible against the backdrop of a huge number of bright stars (click to enlarge).
Source: 3dnews.ru