NASA releases spectacular 3D flyby of the Pillars of Creation

The Eagle Nebula’s most striking feature is a series of three ‘fingers’ reaching out into the cosmos, where ancient stars once died, and new stars are waiting to be born. An image of these ‘Pillars of Creation’ became one of the most instantly recognizable images of all time in 1995, when they were photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Now its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, has returned NASA’s gaze back to the 5,700 light-year-distant nebula to look it at, but this time with infrared, 3D, and 3D printing.

A short movie, based on real observational data, has been spearheaded by Anna McLeod of the University of Durham, and gives armchair universe explorers a chance to fly by the pillars, showing how the pillars are separated in 3D space, and how NASA’s view of the pillars has evolved over time. As a bonus, the 3D model created for the video has been converted into a .stl file, so that those of you out there with a 3D printer can make your own slice of the cosmos.