Stellar spire
15.Eagle
in the
Nebula
Appearing like a winged fairy-tale creature
poised on a pedestal, this object is actually
a billowing tower of cold gas and dust rising
from a stellar nursery called the Eagle Nebula.
The soaring tower is 9.5 light-years or about 90
trillion kilometres high, about twice the distance
from our Sun to the next nearest star.
Stars in the Eagle Nebula are born in clouds
of cold hydrogen gas that reside in chaotic
neighbourhoods, where energy from young
stars sculpts fantasy-like landscapes in the gas.
The tower may be a giant incubator for those
newborn stars. A torrent of ultraviolet light from
a band of massive, hot, young stars [off the top
of the image] is eroding the pillar.
The starlight also is responsible for illuminating
the tower’s rough surface. Ghostly streamers
of gas can be seen boiling off this surface,
creating the haze around the structure and
highlighting its three-dimensional shape. The
column is silhouetted against the background
glow of more distant gas.
Inside the gaseous tower, stars may be forming.
Some of those stars may have been created
by dense gas collapsing under gravity. Other
stars may be forming due to pressure from gas
that has been heated by the neighbouring hot
stars.
The bumps and fingers of material in the centre
of the tower are examples of these stellar
birthing areas. These regions may look small but
they are roughly the size of our solar system.
The dominant colours in the image were
produced by gas energized by the star cluster’s
powerful ultraviolet light. The blue colour at the
top is from glowing oxygen. The red color in
the lower region is from glowing hydrogen. The
Eagle Nebula image was taken in November
2004 with the ACS aboard Hubble.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage
Team STScI/AURA)