About 6,500 light years away, an epic race comes to an end.
This wide-field image of the Eagle Nebula, taken from the ground, shows the star-forming region in all its glory, with new stars, the blue glow of reflected starlight, and the red glow of ionization. Dusty features blocking the light are also clearly visible. The reddish glow at the gaseous periphery is the result of hydrogen atoms recombination and a precisely 656.3-nanometer photon emitted each time an electron transitions from the n=3 energy state to the n=2 energy state.
Inside the Eagle Nebula, the last reserves of neutral gas are now threatened with evaporation.
A large section of the Eagle Nebula, with four of the Hubble Space Telescope’s iconic images superimposed on the affected region of the larger nebula. Although these features, highlighted by the central pillars of creation, are incredibly interesting due to the neutral matter still present, most of the nebula is actually just a cavernous void littered with isolated stars and star clusters.
Located in the plane of the Milky Way, new stars form when cold gas collapses.
The dense cores of the protostar cluster G333.23–0.06, identified by ALMA, show strong evidence for high levels of multiplicity within these cores. Binary nuclei are common, and groups of multiple binaries, forming quaternary systems, are also quite common. Triplet and quintuplet systems are also found within, while, for these high-mass clusters, singlet stars turn out to be quite rare. Stars that form in nebulae throughout the Universe, including the Eagle Nebula, are expected to have similar aggregation properties.
This collapse leads to fragmentation and ultimately the formation of new star systems.
Chandra’s unique ability to resolve and locate X-ray sources has made it possible to identify hundreds of very young stars and those still forming (called “protostars”). Infrared observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory indicate that 219 of the Eagle Nebula’s X-ray sources are young stars surrounded by disks of dust and gas and 964 are young stars without these disks: in total, more than 1,000 new stars and protostars were found. And no, there have been no indications of recent supernovae or supernova remnants discovered; the Pillars are not being destroyed.
However, young stars are hot and violent: they emit enormous amounts of ultraviolet radiation.
Over the past 27 years, our view of the Pillars of Creation has not only expanded in size and resolution, but also in terms of wavelength coverage. The longer wavelengths of light, revealed with unprecedented resolution by JWST, allow us to see features that could never be exposed by an optical telescope, even if it were in space, alone . We can also say, although the effect is subtle, that the Pillars are slowly evaporating and after about 100,000 years they will be completely gone.
These photons ionize the atoms, turning them into plasma and causing them to boil.
This Herschel image of the Eagle Nebula shows heat-based emission from gas and dust from the extremely cold nebula, as only far-infrared views can capture. Each color shows a different dust temperature, from about 10 degrees above absolute zero (10 Kelvin or minus 442 degrees Fahrenheit) for red, to about 40 Kelvin, or minus 388 degrees Fahrenheit, for blue. The Pillars of Creation, identifiable just below and to the left of center, are among the hottest parts of the nebula as revealed by these wavelengths.
Once a large cloud of gas, most of the Eagle Nebula is now cavernous.
Using Chandra, researchers detected more than 1,700 X-ray sources in the Eagle Nebula field. Two-thirds of these sources are probably young stars located in the nebula, and some of them are visible in this small field of view around the Pillars of Creation. Although most sources do not come from inside the pillars themselves, the “eye” of the largest pillar corresponds to a proto-star approximately 5 times the mass of the Sun. The pillars themselves represent some of the last reserves of gas inside the nebula that have not yet been fully photoevaporated.
Massive, newborn star systems dominate the interior, leaving a few scattered patches of gas.
This three-panel view of the central pillar of the Pillars of Creation shows how our view of it has evolved from the 1995 Hubble image, to the 2014 Hubble image, to the 2022 JWST image. The level of detail observed in the composition of the pillar dust is particularly striking, as are the background stars revealed by JWST that are completely obscure to Hubble’s eyes. The color differences between the first two and the third panel, near the top of the pillar, demonstrate the transport of energy within the pillar itself.
Three imposing columns, 4 to 5 light years high, still remain: the pillars of creation.
At left is Hubble’s iconic view of the Pillars of Creation. Beginning in 2022, JWST (right) also observed the pillars, revealing details such as newly formed stars, faint protostars, and cold gas that are invisible even to Hubble’s impressive capabilities.
Observations from 1995 to today show that the pillars are slowly shrinking: they are evaporating under the effect of external radiation.
By rotating and stretching Hubble’s two iconic high-resolution images of the tip of the tallest pillar relative to each other, changes between 1995 and 2015 can be superimposed. Contrary to the expectations of many, the evaporation process is slow and weak, indicating that the pillars will persist for approximately 100,000 years or more.
X-rays and infrared light reveal the presence of young stars forming inside.
This infrared view of the Pillars of Creation taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope, an 8.2 meter ground-based telescope, peers largely through the dust of the Pillars of Creation to reveal the stars forming inside . JWST images are taken at similar wavelengths, but with much higher resolution, much more detail, and cover a much wider wavelength range.
With no evidence of a recent supernova, these structures face a losing endgame.
This colorful view of the Pillars of Creation leverages a vast suite of JWST data, showcasing the tenuous and transient nature of these neutral gas features.
Internal and external radiation will boil away the last gas reserves after about 100,000 years.
This infrared composite view of multiple channels from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, taken in 2007, reveals the “Pillars of Creation” on the right and the “Spire” or “Fairy” on the left, similar to the iconic features revealed by Hubble in optical wavelengths. JWST has not yet imaged the Fairy, but its dense, central gaseous core may yet outlast the neutral matter in the pillars.
The heaviest and most massive clusters will become stars in their own right.
This small region of the Orion Nebula, taken with JWST’s NIRCam imager, not only features stars, gas, and dust, but also planet-mass objects, five of which are surprisingly found in binary pairs. These objects are known as Jupiter-Mass Binary Objects (JuMBOs) and represent about 9% of all planet-mass objects found in the Orion Nebula. Although the Pillars of Creation are about five times farther away, similar physics and similar objects should be present and in play.
“Failed stars,” like brown dwarfs and Jupiter-like worlds, also form in abundance.
This 3D visualization of the location and properties of the feature that appears as the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula is actually composed of at least four different, disconnected components that lie on either side of a rich star cluster: NGC 6611. The neutral material absorbs and reflects starlight, giving it a unique appearance at optical wavelengths and spectacular views when viewed in infrared by JWST.
Only 5 to 10% of the initial gas becomes stars; the rest returns to interstellar space.
Mostly Mute Monday tells an astronomical story in images, visuals and 200 words maximum.