File:The Pillars of Creation (Hubble and Webb Images Side by Side).png

English: Journey with us through Webb’s breathtaking view of the Pillars of Creation, where scores of newly formed stars glisten like dewdrops among floating, translucent columns of gas and dust.

If this majestic landscape looks familiar, you may recognize the original. Hubble first captured the Pillars of Creation in 1995 and revisited it in 2014. Webb’s latest view was taken in near-infrared light, which is invisible to our eyes. Seeing in infrared allows Webb to pierce through the dust and reveal stars galore.

In this image, compare and contrast the Pillars of Creation as seen by Webb and Hubble. On the left here is Hubble’s iconic view, taken in visible light in 2014. On the right is Webb’s new near-infrared view. (Also find a high-res of just the Webb image here on our Flickr!)

Why go back to where we’ve been before? Webb helps us identify far more precise counts of newborn stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust. This will deepen our understanding of how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years. Read more: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-takes-star-...

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Image description: Two images of the Pillars of Creation, a star-forming region in space. At left, Hubble’s visible-light view shows darker pillars that rise from the bottom to the top of the screen, ending in three points. The background is opaque, set off in yellow and green toward the bottom and blue and purple at the top. A handful of stars of various sizes appear.

Webb’s near-infrared image at right shows the same pillars, but they are semi-opaque and rusty red-colored. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of brown and have red outlines. The background is cast in darker blues and blacks, and stars in yellow and white of all sizes speckle the entire scene. Webb’s image was cropped and rotated to match Hubble’s view, so much of the top right corner and a small portion of the left corner has been left black.