The Fairy of Eagle
Nebula
From
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
The dust sculptures of
the Eagle Nebula are evaporating. As powerful starlight whittles away these cool cosmic mountains, the statuesque pillars that
remain might be imagined as mythical
beasts.
Pictured below is
one of several striking
dust pillars of the Eagle Nebula that
might be described as a gigantic alien fairy.
This fairy, however, is
ten light
years tall and spews radiation much hotter than common fire.
The greater Eagle Nebula, M16,
is actually a giant evaporating shell of gas and dust inside of which is
a growing cavity filled
with a spectacular stellar nursery currently forming an open cluster of stars.
The image in
scientifically re-assigned colors was released in 2005
as part of the fifteenth
anniversary celebration of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Image Credit: The Hubble Heritage Team, (STScI/AURA), ESA, NASA