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Filmanets of purple gas fill the frame. The camera zooms into a bubble-like feature in the middle of a filament. Three stars are in the center. A box highlights the edge of a bubble. The camera zooms into the highlighted area. On the left is blotchy pink neutral gas. On the right is blueish ionized gas. A dotted line marks their interface, the ionization front. Curved lines representing the wavefronts of ultraviolet light and winds from the stars crash into the neutral gas. Denser pockets of gas shield the area behind them. As the gas erodes, pillar or elephant-tunk-like features form behind the dense pockets of gas. All of the pillars point towards the central stars. The camera zooms out showing a roughly spherical circular cavity, with three stars in the center. The walls of the cavity are lined with irregular pillar structures, all of them pointing towards the stars.

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Filmanets of purple gas fill the frame. The camera zooms into a bubble-like feature in the middle of a filament. Three stars are in the center. A box highlights the edge of a bubble. The camera zooms into the highlighted area. On the left is blotchy pink neutral gas. On the right is blueish ionized gas. A dotted line marks their interface, the ionization front. Curved lines representing the wavefronts of ultraviolet light and winds from the stars crash into the neutral gas. Denser pockets of gas shield the area behind them. As the gas erodes, pillar or elephant-tunk-like features form behind the dense pockets of gas. All of the pillars point towards the central stars. The camera zooms out showing a roughly spherical circular cavity, with three stars in the center. The walls of the cavity are lined with irregular pillar structures, all of them pointing towards the stars.

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Kelly Lepo (kellylepo@astrodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 16-Feb-2025 10:29:51 JST Kelly Lepo

Ever wonder how something like the Pillars of Creation forms?
This animation shows how young, hot, massive stars carve out roughly spherical cavities in the nebulas they were born in. The densist pockets of gas and dust shield the material behind them, resisting erosion and leaving behind pillar-like protrusions.
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/videos/01JKRG6YA2G05YHPJWNQCVBVM6

In conversation about 8 days ago from astrodon.social permalink