The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a spectacular and highly detailed landscape of the iconic Pillars of Creation in new pictures released by NASA.
The clouds, dubbed the Pillars of Creation, are hydrogen structures of gas and dust teeming with stars in the Eagle Nebula, in the Serpens constellation, some 6,500 light-years from Earth.
According to NASA, the three-dimensional pillars look like majestic rock formations, but are far more permeable.
The arches and spires rising out of a desert landscape are actually ever-changing, with the gas and dust working to form new stars.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 made the Pillars of Creation famous with its first image, which was deemed iconic by space observers. It revisited the scene in 2014 to reveal a sharper wider view in visible light.
But now a new, near-infrared-light view from James Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is helping to "peer through" more of the dust in this star-forming region, according to NASA.
"The thick, dusty brown pillars are no longer as opaque and many more red stars that are still forming come into view," they wrote.
They new view will "help researchers revamp their models of star formation by identifying far more precise counts of newly formed stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust in the region".
What is the difference between Hubble and James Webb?
According to NASA, the James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory.
The six-tonne telescope is the successor to the 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope.
It was launched into orbit in December last year, arriving at a point of equilibrium between the Sun and the Earth in January and producing its first image for public release in July.
It allows astronomers to see through the massive clouds of dust and gas that visible-light observatories like Hubble are unable to.
This was one of the four main goals of the James Webb project.
The other three goals are to witness the first stars and galaxies forming near the beginning of the early universe, to further our understanding of how galaxies assemble over billions of years, and to tell us more about the atmospheres of planets beyond our solar system, perhaps even furthering the search for extraterrestrial life.
"Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it," NASA wrote.
