Image processed as RGB from James Webb data (Mikulsky archive) by Dark Matter
Think of the Eagle Nebula (also known as M16) as a giant, glowing “nursery” in outer space. Located about 7,000 light-years away, it’s a massive cloud of gas and dust where brand-new stars are being born right now.
It gets its name because, from far away, the whole shape looks a bit like an eagle with its wings spread wide and its talons diving down.
The “Pillars of Creation”
The most famous part of this nebula is a section called the Pillars of Creation. Even if you don’t know the name, you’ve likely seen the pictures—they look like giant, ghostly fingers or chimneys reaching up into the stars.
- What are they? They are towering clouds of cold hydrogen gas and dust.
- How big are they? They are trillions of miles tall. To give you an idea, the tallest pillar is about 4 light-years long. That’s roughly 24 trillion miles!
- What’s happening inside? Gravity is pulling the gas together so tightly that it gets hot and eventually “ignites,” creating a new star.
How it Works (The “Steam” Effect)
The reason we can see the nebula so clearly is because of the teenager stars nearby.
Inside the nebula, there are very hot, young stars that give off intense radiation. This radiation acts like a hot wind, blowing against the clouds of gas. This causes the gas to glow (like a neon sign) and also slowly “evaporates” the clouds over millions of years.
Fast Facts for Noobs
- Location: It’s in the constellation Serpens (the Snake).
- Colors: In many photos, green represents hydrogen, red is sulfur, and blue is oxygen.
- Age: The stars inside are “babies” in space terms—only about 1 to 2 million years old. (Our Sun is 4.6 billion years old!)
