NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Dr. Jennifer Wiseman explains the Hubble Space Telescope's view of the Pillars of Creation, located in the Eagle Nebula.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Producer, Director & Editor: James Leigh
Director of Photography: James Ball
Executive Producers: James Leigh & Matthew Duncan
Production & Post: Origin Films
Video Credits:
Hubble Space Telescope Animation
ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)
Light Echo Animation
NASA/ESA/Hubble - M. Kornmesser
Music Credits:
"Transcode" by Lee Groves [PRS], and Peter George Marett [PRS] via Universal Production Music
“Transitions” by Ben Niblett [PRS] and Jon Cotton [PRS] via Atmosphere Music Ltd [PRS] and Universal Production Music.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Producer, Director & Editor: James Leigh
Director of Photography: James Ball
Executive Producers: James Leigh & Matthew Duncan
Production & Post: Origin Films
Video Credits:
Hubble Space Telescope Animation
ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)
Light Echo Animation
NASA/ESA/Hubble - M. Kornmesser
Music Credits:
"Transcode" by Lee Groves [PRS], and Peter George Marett [PRS] via Universal Production Music
“Transitions” by Ben Niblett [PRS] and Jon Cotton [PRS] via Atmosphere Music Ltd [PRS] and Universal Production Music.
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TechTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC]
00:07 This is a region of interstellar space, gas and
00:10 dust in our own Milky Way galaxy, that's part of a nebula we call the Eagle Nebula.
00:17 6,500 light years away from us in the Serpent's constellation.
00:22 [MUSIC]
00:25 These prominent and now famous pillars are sometimes called the pillars of
00:30 creation because they're actually a region where new stars are still forming.
00:35 [MUSIC]
00:36 So what we can see in this region is the effects of stars that have already
00:41 formed lighting up and ionizing this background wispy gas.
00:45 And the environment where new stars are still in the process of forming,
00:49 buried in the dense remaining columns of dust.
00:52 [MUSIC]
00:56 We see some of these hot spots that are right in the region of a protostar that's
01:02 forming at the tips of these columns and then down through the columns.
01:06 There's one there and another one down here.
01:09 As you look carefully, you can see these regions where the protostars,
01:13 as they coalesce, are heating the surrounding dust cocoon right around them.
01:18 But in this visible light picture, we can't see into the dust to really see
01:22 what's going on deep inside the cloud.
01:25 [MUSIC]
01:29 This is also an image of the Eagle Nebula taken with the Hubble Space Telescope.
01:35 However, this image is dramatically different from what we see in visible
01:40 light because the infrared channel on the Wide Field Camera 3 allows us to peer
01:46 through a lot of that dust that blocks the visible light.
01:49 And so instead of seeing all the structure of the pillars that the visible
01:54 light image allows us to see, this infrared view allows us to see through
01:59 some of that dust and we can actually see into those pillars.
02:03 And then you'll also notice we see a lot more stars over the whole field because
02:08 the whole field has a lot of dust, but we can see through it with this infrared view.
02:13 And so we see many stars in the field that are already formed.
02:16 We see regions where new stars are coalescing and
02:19 heating up within these dense pillars.
02:21 And it gives us information that complements what we can see in the visible
02:25 light image.
02:26 [MUSIC]
02:29 The whole region is somewhat ethereal because we see dust,
02:34 we see gas, we see this lit up region in the background,
02:39 this symphony of color and structure and interaction going on in this region.
02:45 I think it's why we never really get tired of looking at it.
02:49 [MUSIC]
02:59 (upbeat music)
03:01 (upbeat music)