Spitzer Telescope Views New “Pillars of Creation”
Fairly recent new images from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope reveal what might be the demise of the “Pillars of Creation”, three towering clouds of dust and gas located in the Eagle Nebula first photographed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. The image taken by the Spitzer Telescope shows the enormous clouds close to a huge cloud of hot dust thought to have been seared by the explosion of a star or a supernova.
Astronomers have theorized that the shock wave from the exploding star might have reached the clouds 6000 years ago. Since light from the Eagle Nebula takes 7000 years to travel to the Earth, it will be about another 1000 years before it will be possible to photograph the destruction of the iconic clouds.
The Spitzer can view the entire Eagle Nebula, a vast, turbulent region of clouds and pillars composed of dust and gas interspersed with stars. The region has about twenty stars on the verge of exploding so astronomers knew it was inevitable that a blast would occur which would blow the dust pillars away. The images provided by Spitzer indicate that one of the stars has already exploded, which humans might have observed as an uncommonly bright star between 1000 and 2000 years ago.
The huge cloud of hot dust near the pillars was assumed by astronomers to have been burned by a supernova blast because of similarities between this hot dust and the dust observed around the known remains of other supernova explosions. The form of the cloud, resembling a shell, suggests a supernova blast wave moving outward to shape it. Imaging from the European Space Agency’s Infrared Space Observator first revealed the dust but, because the Spitzer can observe longer-wavelength infrared light, it was possible to tentatively match the dust the occurrence of a supernova. Depending on what infrared wavelength is being used, the telescope can either view the dust or see through it.
When the iconic pillars disappear the dust and gas which comprised them will be blown away to reveal the stars which were forming inside. The dust might also provide material for the creation of more new stars. Nicolas Flagey of the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale in France said, “I remember seeing a photograph of these pillars more than a decade ago and being inspired to become an astronomer. Now we have discovered something new about this region we thought we understood so well.”
This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 6:16 am and is filed under Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
