The Pillars of Creation — visible and infrared comparison

This image compares two new views of the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation captured by Hubble.

On the left the pillars are seen in visible light, capturing the multi-coloured glow of gas clouds, wispy tendrils of dark cosmic dust, and the rust-coloured elephants’ trunks of the nebula’s famous pillars.

The right image is taken in infrared light, which penetrates much of the obscuring dust and gas and unveils a more unfamiliar view of the pillars.