Eagle Nebula M16 Pillars of Creation

The Eagle Nebula, Messier 16, is a stellar nursery 7000 light years away in Serpens, immortalized by the Hubble Space Telescopes iconic Pillars of Creation image. This center crop reveals towering columns of cold molecular hydrogen and dust, some stretching 4 to 5 light years tall, where new stars are being sculpted from the cosmos. Intense ultraviolet radiation from hot young stars in the cluster NGC 6611 simultaneously illuminates and erodes these pillars through a process called photoevaporation. Within the densest knots of these columns, known as evaporating gaseous globules EGGs, protostars are forming, shielded from the destructive radiation. This image captures the dramatic interplay between stellar birth and destruction.