The November 1995 Hubble shots of M16

Click on the images to get full-size versions

Gas Pillars in the Eagle Nebula M16

Pillars of Creation in a star-forming region

Undersea corral? Enchanted castles? Space serpents? These eerie,

dark pillar-like structures are actually columns of cool interstellar

hydrogen gas and dust that are also incubators for new stars. The

pillars protrude from the interior wall of a dark molecular cloud like

stalagmites from the floor of a cavern. They are part of the “Eagle

Nebula” M16, a nearby star-forming region 7,000 light-years away in the

constellation Serpens.

The pillars are in some ways akin to buttes in the desert, where basalt

and other dense rock have protected a region from erosion, while the

surrounding landscape has been worn away over millennia. In this

celestial case, it is especially dense clouds of molecular hydrogen gas

(two atoms of hydrogen in each molecule) and dust that have survived

longer than their surroundings in the face of a flood of ultraviolet

light from hot, massive newborn stars (off the top edge of the

picture). This process is called “photoevaporation”. This ultraviolet

light is also responsible for illuminating the convoluted surfaces of

the columns and the ghostly streamers of gas boiling away from their

surfaces, producing the dramatic visual effects that highlight the

three-dimensional nature of the clouds. The tallest pillar (left) is

about a light-year long from base to tip.

As the pillars themselves are slowly eroded away by the ultraviolet

light, small globules of even denser gas buried within the pillars are

uncovered. These globules have been dubbed “EGGs.” EGGs is an acronym

for “Evaporating Gaseous Globules,” but it is also a word that

describes what these objects are. Forming inside at least some of the

EGGs are embryonic stars — stars that abruptly stop growing when the

EGGs are uncovered and they are separated from the larger reservoir of

gas from which they were drawing mass. Eventually, the stars

themselves emerge from the EGGs as the EGGs themselves succumb to

photoevaporation.

The picture was taken on April 1, 1995 with the Hubble Space Telescope

Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The color image is constructed from

three separate images taken in the light of emission from different

types of atoms. Red shows emission from singly-ionized sulfur atoms.

Green shows emission from hydrogen. Blue shows light emitted by

doubly- ionized oxygen atoms.

A high quality and large size print of this image is offered at

http://www.spacescope.com/

• STScI Press Release

  PRC95-44a on Geseous Pillars in M16

  

  Star-Birth Clouds in M16

  Stellar “EGGs” emerge from Molecular Clouds

  This eerie, dark structure, resembling an imaginary sea serpent’s head,

  is a column of cool molecular hydrogen gas (two atoms of hydrogen in

  each molecule) and dust that is an incubator for new stars. The stars

  are embedded inside finger-like protrusions extending from the top of

  the nebula. Each “fingertip” is somewhat larger than our own solar

  system.

  The pillar is slowly eroding away by the ultraviolet light from nearby

  hot stars, a process called “photoevaporation”. As it does, small

  globules of especially dense gas buried within the cloud is uncovered.

  These globules have been dubbed “EGGs” — an acronym for “Evaporating

  Gaseous Globules”. The shadows of the EGGs protect gas behind them,

  resulting in the finger-like structures at the top of the cloud.

  Forming inside at least some of the EGGs are embryonic stars — stars

  that abruptly stop growing when the EGGs are uncovered and they are

  separated from the larger reservoir of gas from which they were drawing

  mass. Eventually the stars emerge, as the EGGs themselves succumb to

  photoevaporation.

• STScI Press Release

  PRC95-44b on Star-Birth Clouds in M16

• Featured as Astronomy Image of the Month November 1995

  (Las Positas College)

  

  Evaporating globules in M16

  The stellar EGGS are found, appropriately enough, in the “Eagle Nebula”.

  These pictures were taken on April 1, 1995 with the Hubble Space Telescope

  Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The color image is constructed from

  three separate images taken in the light of emission from different

  types of atoms. Red shows emission from singly-ionized sulfur atoms.

  Green shows emission from hydrogen. Blue shows light emitted by

  doubly- ionized oxygen atoms.

• STScI Press Release

  PRC95-44c on Evaporating Globules in M16

  
  

  Credit: Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen (Arizona State University), and

  NASA

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  The following mosaic allows you to identify which regions of the Eagle

  nebula the Hubble telescope has exposed:

  

  An animation

  was obtained from the HST images in this page, simulating the approach

  to the star forming EGGs in the Eagle Nebula.

• Here‘s a table to retrieve the

  November 1995 HST images of M16 in various formats and resolutions.

• We provide some screen sized images,

  cropped from the Hubble pictures of M16

  (suitable as backgrounds for your computer screen).

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• AAT images of M16
• Amateur images of M16;

  more amateur images

• More images of M16

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  Hartmut Frommert

  ([email protected])

  Christine Kronberg

  ([email protected])

  

  

  

  

  

  Last Modification: 18 Jun 1999 18:40 MET