NASA Shares New Look at the Eagle Nebula's Glowing Star-Forming Pillars
A combined Hubble and Chandra image shows young stars taking shape inside dark, towering columns of gas and dust.
NASA has shared a new image of the Eagle Nebula, a region of space also known as M16. The picture shows bright young stars forming inside dark, towering structures made of cold gas and dust.
These gas and dust columns are about 6,500 light-years away. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year. The columns lie toward the constellation Serpens.
According to NASA, ultraviolet light and winds from a cluster of massive stars in M16 are shaping the pillars. This light and wind slowly wear away the gas and dust, sculpting the columns over time.
The new image is a combination of two kinds of data. It uses visible-light data from the Hubble telescope together with X-ray data from the Chandra telescope. Putting these views together gives a fuller picture of the region.
The environment in M16 may be similar to the environment that formed the Sun. This gives scientists a chance to look at a setting that resembles the one where our own star may have begun.
NASA has also released a video that turns the image into sound. In this video, the vertical position of objects in the picture determines the pitch of the sound, so viewers can hear the image as well as see it.
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