Posted on 01/09/2007 11:08:53 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
SEATTLE – They helped open the public's eyes to the wonders of space when they were first photographed in 1995, but a new study suggests the famous Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula might have already been toppled long ago, and that what the Hubble Space Telescope actually captured was their ghost image.
A new picture of the Eagle Nebula shot by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show the intact pillars next to a giant cloud of glowing dust scorched by the heat of a massive stellar explosion known as a supernova [image].
Astronomers think the supernova's shock wave knocked the pillars down about 6,000 years ago. But because light from that region of the sky takes 7,000 years to reach us, the majestic pillars will appear intact to observers on Earth for another 1,000 years or so.
The supernova blast is thought to have occurred between 6,000 and 9,000 years ago, so what astronomers see now is evidence of the blast just before its destructive shock wave reached the pillars.
Astronomers have long predicted that a supernova blast wave would destroy the famous pillars. One earlier study concluded that the pillars would be destroyed sometime within the next million years. About 20 stars in the region are ripe for exploding and it was only a matter of time before one exploded.
The new Spitzer image suggests one of the stellar time bombs has already detonate. Humans living 1,000 to 2,000 years ago might have noticed the supernova event that destroyed the pillars as an unusually bright star in the sky.
In an end befitting their name, however, astronomers think that gas and dust from the pillar's destruction will help give birth to a new generation of stars.
The study, led by Nicolas Flagey of The Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale in France, was presented here today at the 209th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Editor's Note: All week, SPACE.com is providing complete coverage of the 209th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
I think it's time that we withdraw our troops.
I guess humans observing stellar happenings will, over time see them as excruciatingly slow-motion, due to the time it takes for light to travel to Earth.
ping.
How did the light from the supernova reach earth 1-2,000 years ago, but we still can't see the damage the same event wrought?
The Big Dog did it. No, really. This is Sirius.
They wouldn't be slow motion is we were right there, and that has not5hing to do with the time it takes for the light to get here. It is the immense scale of the events that makes them appear slow.
The pillars are already gone, I take it, so it's too late to do anything about it.
Star of Bethlehem.............
Shockwave travels much slower than the light.........
Alright. That makes sense. Thanks!
damned global warming.
1000-2000 years ago? Bright star seen during the day?.....hmmmmm............we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him...........
Al Gore's going to fix that with universal broadband for stellar light transmissions.
The shock wave travels much slower than the light from the same event. Notice when a bomb/fireworks/lightning goes off, the light from the event is seen before the shock wave/sound hits.
I had the same thought.
Didn't Al invent the four pillars? And didn't Joh Carry vote for the four pillars before he voted against them?
Pillars of Creation......In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God........
The helium and stuff from the supernova traveled at sublight speeds.
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