Astronomy Picture of the Day -- The Fairy of Eagle Nebula

NASA ^ | August 21, 2011 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: 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. Pictured above 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. The above 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.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit: The Hubble Heritage Team, (STScI/AURA), ESA, NASA]

[tutstar]

bump

[SunkenCiv]

This is one of those times that I wish the HTML specs had a rotate modifier for image displays. :')

join or quit list APoD 'blog post new APoD topic Astronomy Picture of the Day topic & keyword Astronomy Chat, Bloggers & keyword Science Chat, Bloggers & keyword NASA's APoD archive Calendar 1995-present APoD on your desktop

[nerdwithagun]

more mermaid then fairy

[bigheadfred]

Yeah, great. First they use NASA to push the moslem agenda on us. Now this...

[Bean Counter]

Ten light years is about 60 Trillion miles....

[squarebarb]

Just wow.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, that’s why there’s so much hitchhiking.

[left that other site]

One of the most dramatic and striking pics to date!

Thank You! :-)

[SunkenCiv]

LOL!

[ixtl]

Why argue about what it looks like. Just enjoy the view.

[colorado tanker]

Spectacular, but not a place a human should visit . . .