Hubble's 1995 image of a star nursery was amazing. Take a look at NASA's new version

Nearly 30 years ago, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured the first image of the Pillars of Creation — the iconic star nursery featuring thick pillars of gas and dust. Now, the new James Webb Space Telescope has captured NASA's most detailed image of the landscape that is helping scientists better understand how stars form.

The Pillars of Creation as captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope look like arches and spires and are filled with semi-transparent gas and dust. This is a region where young stars are forming. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI))

The James Webb telescope, billed as the successor to the aging Hubble, is optimized to see near- and mid-infrared light invisible to people, allowing it to peer through dust that can obscure stars and other objects in Hubble images. While James Webb's infrared eyes were not able to pierce through a mix of gas and dust in the Pillars of Creation, its new view will help scientists identify more precise counts of newly formed stars, and the amount of gas and dust in the region.