Starry Clouds of Creation
Dennis Overbye writes in The New York Times about “Seeing Mountains in Starry Clouds of Creation.” Click this link to see a stunning astronomical photo.
[tease]
In 1995, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope produced “The Pillars of Creation,” an image of stars emerging from biblical-looking clouds of dust that has become an icon of the space age.
Now astronomers operating NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have made their own version. The new image, appropriately called “Mountains of Creation,” shows star-forming pillars in a region known as W5 in the constellation Cassiopeia. These pillars, at heights up to 40 light-years, are 10 times as large as those in the famous Hubble image.
If you do not feel humbled when you view this exquisite image, you are not alive. Because I said so!