Eagle Nebula

Eagle Nebula

nebula

The Eagle Nebula (M16) — a stellar nursery about 5,700 light-years away in Serpens, in the Orion Arm. At its heart stand the Pillars of Creation: towering columns of cold gas and dust, light-years tall, being lit and slowly evaporated by ultraviolet light from the hot young stars of the cluster NGC 6611. New stars are still condensing inside the pillars even as that radiation eats them away.

Open in 3D viewSee Eagle Nebula in the live, interactive 3D map

Science

Physical

Type
Emission nebula + young open cluster NGC 6611 (H II region)
Distance
~5,700 light-years
Size
~70 × 55 light-years; the Pillars themselves ~4-5 ly tall
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NGC 6611 — hot, massive young stars ionising and eroding the gas

How we know

Note
Two REAL images: the in-scene billboard is an ESO wide-field of the whole nebula (CC BY 4.0); the card hero is Hubble's 2014 view of the Pillars of Creation (NASA/ESA/STScI, public domain) — the nebula's most famous ~5-light-year detail. Both are shown as seen from Earth; a nebula's true 3-D shape cannot be depicted.

Discovery & history

Name
Messier's 16th entry; the 'Eagle' (also 'Star Queen') for the shape its pillars and glowing gas trace against the sky.

Discovered by Jean-Philippe de Chéseaux around 1745 and catalogued by Charles Messier in 1764. Hubble's 1995 portrait of the Pillars of Creation became one of the most famous astronomical images ever made; Hubble re-imaged them in 2014, and JWST in 2022.

Images

The Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula (M16) — Hubble's 2014 view of the nebula's most famous feature.
NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) — public domain · Wikimedia Commons
The whole Eagle Nebula (M16) — a real ESO wide-field image; the Pillars sit at its centre.
ESO — CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Images from open archives · credit shown per image