The Pillars of Creation

This scientific visualization explores the iconic Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16 or M16) and the various ways that stars and dust are intertwined in the process of star formation. In developing the contextual story and the three-dimensional model, the video uses data from science papers, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Webb Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Learn more about the visualization process here.

The creation Process

The visualization of the Pillars of Creation was one of the most complex animations that the visualization team had produced together, We created a full 3D model based on scientific data (which is not typical for the astronomical visualizations that we produce) as well as used volumetrics and surface modeling and texturing to get the look and feel. You can check out a quick walk through some of my contributions to the project shown in the June 2024 Astroviz Community Meetup.

You can also print your own version of the model created for the visualization