The original iconic “Pillars of Creation” image was captured by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, usually abbreviated WFPC2. Astronomers Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen assembled the celebrated image from multiple exposures made in 1995.
The photograph shows towering columns of cold gas and dust inside the Eagle Nebula, about 6,500–7,000 light-years from Earth. The structures are being sculpted by ultraviolet radiation from nearby young, massive stars. Dense knots called evaporating gaseous globules, or EGGs, shield material behind them and can contain forming stars.
WFPC2 used four CCD detectors and filters that isolated emissions from hydrogen, ionized sulfur, and ionized oxygen. Those channels were assigned different colors to create the familiar composite image. A characteristic stair-step shape appears at one corner because one detector had a different magnification and field of view.
A common mix-up is WFC3: it produced Hubble’s later, higher-resolution 2014 revisit of the pillars. The James Webb Space Telescope also photographed the region in 2022, but neither camera made the original 1995 icon.