Eagle 2023

Image of the “Pillars of Creation”, taken using the “Hubble Palette”.

The Pillars of Creation is among the most famous images every captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The “pillars” themselves are large molecular clouds (“clouds” of gas containing an abundance of molecules) which serve as a “stellar nursery” where stars begin to form. The filters used to capture this capture specific emission lines, effectively mapping regions with lots of Hydrogen to the “Green” channel, regions with Silicon to the “Red” channel, and maps regions with Oxygen to the “Blue” channel. Muddy brown regions are rich in Silicon and Hydrogen, while the blue regions contain Oxygen.

The material in these clouds is made luminous through the absorption and re-emission of light emitted from the still-forming stars. The stars in the image appear saturated; this is due to the long exposure-times that were used to capture the nebula itself. The color of the stars conveys important information, as different emission lines are excited depending on the temperature of the photosphere.