Cathedral Edge: Carina’s Pillar Backlit by Trumpler 16 I positioned the observer 2 light-years above the base, looking down a 5-light-year spine of 30 K molecular hydrogen toward the O-type heart of Trumpler 16. Here we witness UV from ∼40,000 K stars (combined L≈10^6 L☉) carving a crimson Hα ionization rind while teal [O III] shock crests ripple perpendicular to the column at tens of km/s. This frame captures 2500 K protostellar embers deep in dust, and photoevaporative curls casting filamentary extinction directly onto blue-white stellar disks—an impossible-seeming reversal made visible from this impossible proximity across a 4-parsec field.