Hubble's 'Pillars of Non-Creation'

mdahlman writes "According to BBC News, Hubble's 'Pillars of Creation' are really 'Pillars of Death'. Well, at least 'Pillars of Non-Creation'." I have to get a poster of this.

get your poster

[proxybyproxy]

I have to get a poster of this.

Get one here for $22 at 24"*30" [imageexchange.com] or here for $295 at 32"*48" [barnesandnoble.com]

Re:get your poster

[Bastian]

I got mine at 24" x 36" for about 6 bucks by downloading an extremely hi-res image of the nebula and printing it on the plotter at work.

WAG

[jo42]

Goes to show that most science is still a lot of WAG... What I want to know, is what is missing from the top right corner? Proof of Alien life (outside of /.) once and for all?

Re:WAG

[LightForce3]

AFAIK, all "raw" Hubble images have that characteristic missing corner, such as this image [stsci.edu] of the Large Magellanic Cloud taken in November 1996.

I imagine that most of the Hubble images we've seen are composites of several individual pictures, compensating for the missing piece in each individual picture.

As for the cause of the missing corner, I imagine it could be due to the flaw in the telescope's optics and the subsequent fix. Alternately, it could simply be the way the telescope was designed.

Of course, your explanation is much more interesting. :)

--LF

Re:WAG

[CheshireCatCO]

Your first guess is correct: the price paid to fix Hubble's flawed optics was the loss of that corner. Worth it, I suppose. And it gives HST images a unique fingerprint to make them easy to spot.

WFPC

[mgarraha]

The dark corner of many HST images is an artifact of the Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WFPC). Here's an illustrated explanation [hubblesite.org]. The recent service mission replaced it with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which is bigger, more sensitive, and makes nice square images.

Oh, damn those Arizonan heretics!

[Ashurbanipal]

from the article:

Professor Rodger Thompson, of the University of Arizona, US, has been observing the Eagle Nebula using the Nicmos (Near-infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer) on the Hubble Space Telescope.

He told BBC News Online: "They look like very dark, dense columns of gas and dust. But when you view them in the infrared, you get a different picture."

The infrared images show that the Pillars of Creation do not contain a lot of material and that star formation is coming to an end. The only place where stars are being born is at the very tips of the pillars.

Oh, golly, there are only billions of metric tonnes of material there, and stars are only being formed in an unbelievably huge area! I'm so disappointed, let's get rid of that lying Hubble device and go back to Mt. Palomar!

Must be a slow news day at the BBC.

D'oh

[jonnyfish]

I used a high resolution version of the original M16 image (the pillars) as my desktop background for a looooong time. This just takes the fun out of it :(

Re:D'oh

[bigreddog81]

I use the new one of the tadpole galaxy on mine, takes a while to load up though, :P

"Pillars of Non-Creation"???

[questionlp]

Sounds like someone played too much Final Fantasy III (aka FF6j) and has had his/her mind warped by Kefka.

"Pillars of Non-Creation" == "Monument To Non Existance"???

;-)

Non-Creation??

[Transcendent]

Yes, the pillars are fading, but no, they are not dieing, but instead they are creating.

These pillars of gas are forming into the small planets, moons, asteroids, and possibly more stars within the clouds.... Stars do not form instantly, they have to grow dense, then explode in a frenzy of fusion to be born. Our conclusions are far to premature...

We are not looking at its death, but instead its birth...

knowing that the pillars will fade in a million years or so means the picture has lost a little of its appeal.

Not at all. That fact has created that picture into a record of time.