July 10, 2009
The cosmos has been expanding since the beginning of time, making room for galaxies, for stars, for planets — and ultimately, for you.
The Pillars of Eagle Castle
Birthday · July 10, 2009
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APOD published July 10, 2009. Credit: Emanuele Colognato & Jim Wood (Backyard Skies). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What lights up this castle of star formation? The familiar Eagle Nebula glows bright in many colors at once. The above image is a composite of three of these glowing gas colors. Pillars of dark dust nicely outline some of the denser towers of star formation. Energetic light from young massive stars causes the gas to glow and effectively boils away part of the dust and gas from its birth pillar. Many of these stars will explode after several million years, returning most of their elements back to the nebula which formed them. This process is forming an open cluster of stars known as M16.
Image credit: Emanuele Colognato & Jim Wood (Backyard Skies)