Pillars of Creation

The Pillars of Creation are pillars of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, ~ 5 lightyears tall and at a distance of ~ 7000 lightyears from the Earth. Massive new stars are being formed within the pillars, but at the same time the gas and dust are being eroded by the intense ultraviolet light from nearby young stars. The different colors in the Pillars of Creation result from the electromagnetic emission from different elements: blue is related to oxygen, orange is related to sulfur and green is related to both hydrogen and nitrogen.


Information source: NASA

Image: The Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula as seen from the Hubble Space Telescope. Source: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team.

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