In the 1990s it adorned mugs, mousemats and bedroom walls. Now the Eagle Nebula has been revisited by the Hubble Space Telescope – the observatory that first brought it to worldwide attention.
The original iconic image was taken at visible wavelengths – the same light our eyes can see. This jaw-droppingly beautiful new image is taken in the infrared – the same wavelengths used to send message from your TV remote. In astronomy, infrared excels at peering through dust and gas that can obscure our view of what lies underneath: new stars being crafted by gravity from the gas within ‘the pillars of creation’.