October 22, 2024
The light from the farthest visible stars set out on its journey long before your first birthday.
M16: Pillars of Star Creation
Birthday · October 22, 2024
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APOD published October 22, 2024. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
These dark pillars may look destructive, but they are creating stars. This pillar-capturing picture of the Eagle Nebula combines visible light exposures taken with the Hubble Space Telescope with infrared images taken with the James Webb Space Telescope to highlight evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that interior gas contracts gravitationally to form stars. At each pillar's end, the intense radiation of bright young stars causes low density material to boil away, leaving stellar nurseries of dense EGGs exposed. The Eagle Nebula, associated with the open star cluster M16, lies about 7000 light years away. Jigsaw Challenge: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day