Pillars of Creation (NIRCam and MIRI Composite)

By fusing images from two of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope cameras, the Pillars of Creation ignite in its infrared glory. Near-infrared light reveals thousands of newborn stars as bright orange spheres just outside the dusty pillars. Mid-infrared unveils billowing layers of orange dust that drape the top of the scene. Densest regions are obscured in deep indigo hues. Dust composes the iconic pillar structures where new stars form. Gravity causes knots of gas and dust to collapse, slowly heat up, and form stars - apparent along pillar edges where stars practically burst forth. Undulating red details hint at even younger embedded stars, just a few hundred thousand years old, that eject material as they actively form.  The Pillars of Creation lie within the vast Eagle Nebula, 6,500 light-years distant.