The Hubble Telescope celebrates its 25th anniversary in April, and to get ready for the festivities it recently revisited one of its most popular locales, the Pillars of Creation.
The Hubble Telescope celebrates its 25th anniversary in April, and to get ready for the festivities it recently revisited one of its most popular locales, the Pillars of Creation.
In 1995 Hubble captured its first image of the gaseous columns, which are officially known as Messier 16 and located about 65 hundred light years from Earth.
That picture has gone on to become one of the most famous the telescope has ever captured.
The new version is much more detailed, but unfortunately the photo also shows that over the past two decades the pillars have experienced quite a bit of deterioration.
A very large fragment can be seen flying away from the mother mass, and a blue glow surrounding the cloud is actually evidence that Messier 16’s material is evaporating.
It’s the stars forming inside and around them that are causing much the disruption, as they emit a significant amount of damaging radiation.
Scientists at the European Space Agency don’t believe that the celestial feature’s long-term survival looks promising.
They will, however, still be around in another 20 years, should astronomers wish to add another image to the growing Pillars of Creation photo collection.
