The clumps of gas and dust have never looked better.
The latest awe-inspiring image, beamed to Earth by the most powerful space telescope ever built, shows the Pillars of Creation some 6,500 light-years away.
The many stars that formed within the dense clouds of gas and dust, as well as the youngest ones currently emerging from those clouds, can be seen in the near-IR image.
The three-dimensional pillars look like majestic rock formations, but are much more porous, according to NASA. The columns are made up of cool interstellar gas and dust that appear to be semi- transparent.
The image shows glowing red blobs at the end of some pillars, signifying areas where young stars are expelling material.
According to NASA, when knots with enough mass form within the pillars of gas and dust, they begin to collapse under their own gravity, and eventually form new stars.
In 1995 the Pillars of Creation was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. You can compare it with the other work below.
The space agency said that the image will allow researchers to update their models of star formation, which will allow them to learn more about how stars develop before they burst out of these dusty clouds.
The telescope was launched in December of 2016 and is currently in an altitude of a million miles from Earth. While exploring areas of interest many light-years away, he is also taking time to image heavenly bodies closer to home, and this image of Jupiter shows the planet as you have never seen it before.
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