Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Project (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgment: M. Livio (STScI) and N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley)

Radiation from massive stars is carving away at cold molecular clouds, creating bizarre, fantasy-like structures. These one-light-year-tall pillars of cold hydrogen and dust, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, are located in the Carina Nebula. Violent stellar winds and powerful radiation from massive stars are sculpting the surrounding nebula. Inside the dense structures, new stars may be born. This image of dust pillars in the Carina Nebula is a composite of 2005 observations taken of the region in hydrogen light (light emitted by hydrogen atoms) along with 2010 observations taken in oxygen light (light emitted by oxygen atoms), both times with Hubble's ACS detector. The immense Carina Nebula is an estimated 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2010/news-2010-29

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

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