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Hubble's 'Pillars of Non-Creation'

Posted by michael on from the cosmic-warfare dept.

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.

6 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. WAG by jo42 · · Score: 2

    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?

    1. Re:WAG by LightForce3 · · Score: 2, Informative

      AFAIK, all "raw" Hubble images have that characteristic missing corner, such as this image 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

    2. Re:WAG by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 2

      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.

  2. WFPC by mgarraha · · Score: 2, Informative

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

  3. Re:get your poster by Bastian · · Score: 2

    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.

  4. Non-Creation?? by Transcendent · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.