What Can We Learn From the Pillars of Creation?
The Pillars of Creation are a breathtaking and iconic feature in astronomy, famous for their distinct shape. This formation is about 6,500 light-years away, in the Eagle Nebula, and astronomers believe that it gives us insight into the birth and evolution of stars.
The aptly named pillars are towering columns of gas and dust that stretch several light-years tall. These colossal structures are composed primarily of hydrogen gas and interstellar dust, providing the raw materials for star formation – hence the name.
“Pillars of Creation” was originally the title of the famous photograph of this cosmic structure, named so in reference to a Charles Spurgeon sermon. The formation was first photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, and later revisited in higher resolution in 2014 and 2022, giving us the stunningly-detailed images we have today.
Photo: “The Space Store,” Jim Allen, Firecrown Media
Within the dense regions of the pillars, gravity causes pockets of gas to collapse, eventually igniting nuclear fusion and giving birth to new stars. The bright spots at the tips of the pillars, visible in Hubble’s images, are newly formed stars that have just broken free from the surrounding gas.
When Hubble first captured the Pillars of Creation, astronomers and other scientists speculated about their role in the universe’s creative power. The 2014 image update, taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, provided a clearer and more detailed look at the pillars, highlighting their intricate structure in both visible and infrared light.
Observing the nebula allows astronomers to study how stars form and evolve within dense clouds of gas and dust. Understanding this process is crucial to learning how galaxies evolve and how the elements essential for life are created and distributed across the universe.
The Pillars of Creation serve as a window into the life cycle of stars. The universe is always building and destroying, creating and recycling. Stars are being born there right now – or at least they were. Interestingly, the Pillars of Creation may no longer exist as we see them. The light captured by Hubble took 6,500 years to reach Earth, meaning that any recent events, such as a supernova that could have dispersed the gasses, are yet to be observed.
In the meantime, this is one of the most iconic interstellar images we have today, and the kind of glimpse into the universe that makes us here at The Space Store sit back in awe of the cosmos.
You can take home a beautiful, desktop-sized recreation of the Pillars of recreation today with our Pillars of Creation crystal model.
This 2.5D rendering of the iconic formation makes for a great conversation piece or a reminder of the childlike wonder that makes you look up at the stars.
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- Written by Matt Herr