Astronomy Picture of the Day: The Fairy of Eagle Nebula


The Fairy of Eagle Nebula
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. Featured here 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. This great pillar, which is about 7,000 light years away, will likely evaporate away in about 100,000 years. The featured 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.

December 02, 2018
via NASA https://ift.tt/2Q7b4OL
Space

Manage this Applet


Unsubscribe from these notifications or sign in to manage your Email Applets.

IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Evernote cuts staff as user growth stalls

The best air conditioner

We won't see a 'universal' vape oil cartridge anytime soon