File:Eagle.column1.arp.750pix.jpg

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STScI-1995-44 Star-birth clouds in M16, taken from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) with its Wide Field/Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2): Stellar “eggs” emerge from molecular cloud. This eerie, dark structure in IC 4703 (the Eagle nebula) is a column of cool molecular hydrogen gas and dust that is an incubator for new stars. The stars are embedded inside finger-like protrusions clearly seen extending from the top of the column. Each “fingertip” is somewhat larger than our own solar system. The pillar is slowly eroding away by the ultraviolet light from nearby hot stars, a process called “photoevaporation”. As it does, small globules of especially dense gas buried within the cloud are uncovered. These globules have been dubbed “EGGs” ; an acronym for “Evaporating Gaseous Globules”. The shadows of the EGGs protect gas behind them, resulting in the finger-like structures at the top of the cloud. ST ScI OPO • PRC95-44b

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Summary

DescriptionEagle.column1.arp.750pix.jpg	STScI-1995-44 Star-birth clouds in M16, taken from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) with its Wide Field/Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2): Stellar “eggs” emerge from molecular cloud. This eerie, dark structure in IC 4703 (the Eagle nebula) is a column of cool molecular hydrogen gas and dust that is an incubator for new stars. The stars are embedded inside finger-like protrusions clearly seen extending from the top of the column. Each “fingertip” is somewhat larger than our own solar system. The pillar is slowly eroding away by the ultraviolet light from nearby hot stars, a process called “photoevaporation”. As it does, small globules of especially dense gas buried within the cloud are uncovered. These globules have been dubbed “EGGs” ; an acronym for “Evaporating Gaseous Globules”. The shadows of the EGGs protect gas behind them, resulting in the finger-like structures at the top of the cloud. ST ScI OPO • PRC95-44b
Date	2 November 1995
Source	http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1995/44/image/b
Author	Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen (Arizona State University), Hubble Space Telescope, ESA, STScI, and NASA
Permission (Reusing this file)	“Material credited to STScI on this site was created, authored, and/or prepared for NASA under Contract NAS5-26555. Unless otherwise specifically stated, no claim to copyright is being asserted by STScI and it may be freely used as in the public domain in accordance with NASA's contract. However, it is requested that in any subsequent use of this work NASA and STScI be given appropriate acknowledgement.”

History

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The material was created for NASA by Space Telescope Science Institute under Contract NAS5-26555, or for ESA by the Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre. Copyright statement at hubblesite.org or 2008 copyright statement at spacetelescope.org. For material created by the European Space Agency on the spacetelescope.org site since 2009, use the {{ESA-Hubble}} tag.