What are The Pillars Of Creation?

PILLARS OF CREATION

Pillars of Creation (Source - Wikipedia/NASA)

What are the "Pillars Of Creation" ?

Why is it important?

Really that far?

So big?

Is it dead?

What are the "Pillars Of Creation" ?

>>>> The "Pillars Of Creation" is an incredibly wonderful thing! It's a photograph taken by the renowned Hubble Telescope in the year 1995. The location of this image is 7,000 light years from Earth and located in the Eagle Nebula.(Yes, it's Seven Thousand Light Years!) It's nothing but just a multi-colored picture of a gigantic cloud gas and dust. Curious why it's "Pillars Of Creation" then? This very cloud of gas and dust is where the stars come to BIRTH! This is one of the many,many nurseries of stars out there! Yes, Stars are formed in such visually beautiful places... The basic composition of these gas pillars is cool molecular Hydrogen. This wasn't taken in just one picture. 32 different images from 4 different cameras were used to form the above image. Due to the magnified lens of the cameras, the stair shaped pattern at the top right was formed. Wonder why it's so colorful? The green light is due to Hydrogen, red being from Sulfur which was singly-ionized and blue is from the doubly-ionized Oxygen atoms.

Herschel Observatory Image

Why is it important?

>>>> The Pillars are of great important for cosmological studies about the conditions,elements,space required for the Birth Of Stars.The Nebula is located about 7,000 light years but still can be viewed from a decent telescope in your backyard! Till date, the pillars have provided the space researchers with essential information regarding the birth of various types of stars. Also, astronomers haven't been able to detect quite a lot of "nurseries" located at such distance. It was a remarkable achievement for the scientists when the Pillars of Creation was pictured. The location of this Nebula might not be at an ideal location from Earth but is enough for researchers to get the required data. Scientists were not able to study the formation of stars until the Pillars were found by Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen then at Arizona State University. The iconic pillars have been a subject of interest since detected!

Image from Observatory located on Earth (Pillars in the middle)

Really that FAR ?

>>>> These Pillars are located at a distance of about 7000 light years from Planet Earth. Wanna know how far that is? Then let's do some calculations first ...

1 Light Year = 9.4605284 × 10¹⁵ meters

= 9.4605284 × 10¹² kilometers

so, it's approximately about 9.4 with 12 zeros after it. Imagine how much would it be for 7000 Light-Years! You do the math!

Seriously that Big ?

Source - FQTQ

First, take a look at the picture >

Look carefully and you'll see a small finger-like image at the top of this pillar. Can you imagine how vast is it? Well, it's the size of our solar system!!! I guess "befuddled" would be the correct word to express anyone's brains situation after reading that.

The pillars are so long that the measure is not expressed in millions or trillions of kilometers but Light Years! This pillar is the left most pillar and is approximately 4 light years in length.

Again, we're gonna do some basic calculations,

There's 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour. And then there are 24 hours in a day. 365 days in a month and the length is 4 years(sounds funny right?) and the last; 299,792 i.e. the speed of light.

60 X 60 X 24 X 365 X 4 X 299792 = 37816962048000 Km.

37 Trillion 816 Billion 962 Million 48 Thousand Kilometers :)

Now that's just the size of these "giants". Remember the calculation we previous made about the relation between 1 Light Year and Km's? Try to apply that hear and be ready to face what I say, "moments of cosmic numbness". Moving on then...

So, it's DEAD ?

Maybe Dead? (Source - FQTQ)

Whenever you look at the sky every night, everything you see is the past! All of it! It may be some seconds,hours,days and even thousands of years..but the PAST. Back to our topic, see the red gas in the image above? That's the gas in that cosmic region heated up due.The reason for this is a spectacular yet calamitous event, a supernova. Supernova is an exploding star,one of the most amazing events of our Universe. Theories suggest that the shock-waves formed due to the supernova may have damaged or knocked down the Pillars of Creation. This event is supposed to have happened at least 6000 years ago. The pillars being at 7000 light years is the reason why we haven't seen it yet. This means that Earth would be able to see this devastation about 1000 years from now. The Earth-lings then would see these pillars fall apart and annihilated by the extreme shock waves of the supernova. They will know that the even happened a long time ago,but it'd still be a miserable and disheartening moment!

As FQTQ say "We are merely spectators,relegated to the lowly role of simply watching and trying to make sense of the cosmos."

We must feel privileged to be able to witness such wonders happening around us! We can't do anything but watch the chaos around us and how it brings order to itself, our Universe.That is the beauty of our Cosmos!

Enjoy everything you see above and around you, because it's there after a long struggle! The Universe made it for you!