“The Magical Beauty of M16 & The Pillars of Creation”
May 19, 2021
“The magical beauty of the M16 Eagle Nebula & The beautiful Pillars of Creation”
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has revisited the famous Pillars of Creation, revealing a sharper and wider view of the structures in this visible-light image. Astronomers combined several Hubble exposures to assemble the wider view. Object Names: M16, Eagle Nebula, NGC 6611 Image Type: Astronomical Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AThe Pillars of Creation is part of an active star-forming region within the Eagle Nebula.This nebula is by far on of my favorite !
M16 is located in the Sagittarius-Carina spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy.M16 neighbor its the M17 Omega Nebula.M16 is one of the more unusual objects in the milky way.
M16 or also know The Eagle Nebula,is one of the most amazing sights that can be seen in a large telescope. It’s the location of several famous structures including the stunning Pillars of Creation,an active star-forming region of gas and dust.TheM16 It’s about 7,000 light-years away, and it’s visible in our sky at this time of year.The Eagle Nebula contains not only the Pillars of Creation ( I m in love with this beautiful nebula) but several other star-forming regions as well.
Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation, composite image. These towering columns are formed of interstellar hydrogen gas and dust. This image combines visible and infrared data, and is from the Hubble Legacy Archive of images from the Hubble Space Telescope. The original ‘Pillars of Creation’ image was published in 1995.
The star cluster was discovered in 1746 by P.L. de Cheseaux. 20 years later Charles Messier observed the surrounding nebulas.Messier provided the `M’ numbers we use to designate so many of the nebulas.
M16 is an example of a galactic HII region, which most of the emission comes from the red light of ionized (electrically charged) hydrogen gas.
Millions new stars are formed somewhere in our Galaxy every year,is some “Star-factoryarea”.M16 glowing red appearance and the dark features are the gas and dust out of which the existing stars originally centralized!Its also has many emission nebulae, or clouds in space that shine with their own light.And it has some dark nebulae,which don’t shine themselves,but which can be seen because they obscure light from other sources
The brightest stars, like the conspicuous double of O stars, are concentrated toward the north-west. On the southern side, there are several bright-edged dark lanes and striations that crossing the nebula1These called `elephant trunk’ structures!
O and B stars are considerably heavier than our Sun, since they contain some thirty times as much mattAlso, is there evidence for rapid motions in the nebula M16, with suggestions of agitation around the dark lanes to the NE north-east.
One more interesting part of this nebula, is M16 contains some neutral gas clouds, which have no electrical charge! Only radio astronomers can discover them!
These stars are about two million years old, which is quite young for a star ,If you think that our own middle-aged Sun clocks in at over four billion years!