Eagle Nebula
Eagle nebula also is known as M16.
In 1995, The Hubble Space Telescope revealed never-before-seen details of three giant pillars of cold gas bathed in the ultraviolet light from a cluster of young, massive stars.
These gigantic pillars were actually discovered about 370 years ago which is now known as Eagle Nebula.
The discoverer, Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux, could only see the glow of the stellar grouping when he recorded his finding in 1745-1746.
Twenty years later, Charles Messier cataloged the cluster as Messier 16, or M16. Astronomers later named the region the “Eagle Nebula,” because it looked like an eagle with outstretched wings.
In 2014, Hubble again observed the Eagle Nebula, this time with one of its new cameras, the Wide Field Camera 3. The versatile camera took images of the pillars in visible and in near-infrared light
Near-infrared light can penetrate much of the gas and dust, revealing stars behind the nebula as well as hidden away inside the pillars.
Some of the gas and dust clouds are so dense that even near-infrared light cannot penetrate them.
The Nebula contains hydrogen and microscopic dust particles, the raw materials for building new stars
Off the top of this picture, there are young, hot, massive stars that shine very brightly. The stars’ powerful radiation heats the surrounding gas, making it glow. This intense radiation is responsible for sculpting the columns; it erodes more tenuous gas in the columns through a process called photo-evaporation.
This nebula is around 7500 light years away from Earth.
Located in Serpens constellation Eagle Nebula stretches about 70 by 50 light years and has approx. 12000 solar mass.
The best time to observe the Eagle Nebula from the northern hemisphere is summer and early autumn, when the nebula can be found in the southern sky in the evening.
Its age is estimated about 5.5 million years.
Eagle nebula also is known as M16.
In 1995, The Hubble Space Telescope revealed never-before-seen details of three giant pillars of cold gas bathed in the ultraviolet light from a cluster of young, massive stars.
These gigantic pillars were actually discovered about 370 years ago which is now known as Eagle Nebula.
The discoverer, Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux, could only see the glow of the stellar grouping when he recorded his finding in 1745-1746.
Twenty years later, Charles Messier cataloged the cluster as Messier 16, or M16. Astronomers later named the region the “Eagle Nebula,” because it looked like an eagle with outstretched wings.
In 2014, Hubble again observed the Eagle Nebula, this time with one of its new cameras, the Wide Field Camera 3. The versatile camera took images of the pillars in visible and in near-infrared light
Near-infrared light can penetrate much of the gas and dust, revealing stars behind the nebula as well as hidden away inside the pillars.
Some of the gas and dust clouds are so dense that even near-infrared light cannot penetrate them.
The Nebula contains hydrogen and microscopic dust particles, the raw materials for building new stars
Off the top of this picture, there are young, hot, massive stars that shine very brightly. The stars’ powerful radiation heats the surrounding gas, making it glow. This intense radiation is responsible for sculpting the columns; it erodes more tenuous gas in the columns through a process called photo-evaporation.
This nebula is around 7500 light years away from Earth.
Located in Serpens constellation Eagle Nebula stretches about 70 by 50 light years and has approx. 12000 solar mass.
The best time to observe the Eagle Nebula from the northern hemisphere is summer and early autumn, when the nebula can be found in the southern sky in the evening.
Its age is estimated about 5.5 million years.
The Eagle Nebula is illuminated by the ultraviolet light of the young stars newly formed in one of the nebula’s star forming regions.The hot, young stars within the nebula also emit strong X-ray radiation.These Pillars of Creations are responsible for birth of new young stars in Universe.
