The Pillars of Creation — 1995 and 2015 comparison

This image compares two views of the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation taken with Hubble 20 years apart.

The new image, on the left, captures almost exactly the same region as in the 1995, on the right. However, the newer image uses Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, installed in 2009, to capture light from glowing oxygen, hydrogen, and sulphur with greater clarity.

Having both images allows astronomers to study how the structure of the pillars is changing over time.