La Fee de la Nebuleuse de l'Aigle
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.