A team of astronomers is showing the stunning "Pillars of Creation" picture in (literally) never-before-seen depth.
According to NASA, the image comes from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Very Large Telescope's (VLT) Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE). The image is the first ever 3-D view of the iconic Pillars of Creation picture.
You can see the images in an ESO press release HERE.
The Hubble Telescope, a prolific collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), first captured the Pillars of Creation about two decades ago. NASA is celebrating Hubble's 25th anniversary.
"By measuring the Pillars of Creation's rate of evaporation, MUSE has given astronomers a time frame for when the pillars will be no more. They shed about 70 times the mass of the Sun every million years or so," the ESO said in their release. "Based on the their present mass of about 200 times that of the Sun, the Pillars of Creation have an expected lifetime of perhaps three million more years - an eyeblink in cosmic time. It seems that an equally apt name for these iconic cosmic columns might be the Pillars of Destruction."
The Pillars of Creation are columns of clouds made up of massive amounts of gas and dust.
"The new observations demonstrate how the different dusty pillars of this iconic object are distributed in space and reveal many new details - including a previously unseen jet from a young star," NASA said in its release. "Intense radiation and stellar winds from the cluster's brilliant stars have sculpted the dusty Pillars of Creation over time and should fully evaporate them in about three million years."
