The Eagle Nebula (catalogued as Messier 16 or M16, and as NGC 6611, and also known as the Star Queen Nebula) is a young

open cluster An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of tens to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and ...

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

s in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

Serpens Serpens () is a constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere. One of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, it remains one of the 88 modern constellations designated by the International Astronomical Union. It ...

, discovered by Jean-Philippe de Cheseaux in 1745–46. Both the "Eagle" and the "Star Queen" refer to visual impressions of the dark silhouette near the center of the nebula, an area made famous as the " Pillars of Creation" imaged by the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

. The

nebula A nebula (; or nebulas) is a distinct luminescent part of interstellar medium, which can consist of ionized, neutral, or molecular hydrogen and also cosmic dust. Nebulae are often star-forming regions, such as in the Pillars of Creation in ...

contains several active star-forming gas and dust regions, including the aforementioned Pillars of Creation. The Eagle Nebula lies in the Sagittarius Arm of the

Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...

Characteristics

The Eagle Nebula is a diffuse

emission nebula An emission nebula is a nebula formed of ionized gases that emit light of various wavelengths. The most common source of ionization is high-energy ultraviolet photons emitted from a nearby hot star. Among the several different types of emission n ...

, or

H II region An H II region is a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionized. It is typically in a molecular cloud of partially ionized gas in which star formation has recently taken place, with a size ranging from one to hundreds of light year ...

, which is catalogued as IC 4703. This region of active current star formation is about 5700

light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year (ly or lyr), is a unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equal to exactly , which is approximately 9.46 trillion km or 5.88 trillion mi. As defined by the International Astr ...

s distant. A

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

of gas that can be seen coming off the

in the northeastern part is approximately 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometers long. The cluster associated with the nebula has approximately 8100 stars, which are mostly concentrated in a gap in the molecular cloud to the north-west of the Pillars. The brightest star (HD 168076) has an

apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the Irradiance, brightness of a star, astronomical object or other celestial objects like artificial satellites. Its value depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance, and any extinction (astronomy), ...

of +8.24, easily visible with good binoculars. It is actually a

binary star A binary star or binary star system is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved as separate stars us ...

formed of an O3.5V star plus an O7.5V companion. This star has a mass of roughly 80

solar mass The solar mass () is a frequently used unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately . It is approximately equal to the mass of the Sun. It is often used to indicate the masses of other stars, as well as stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxie ...

es, and a luminosity up to 1 million times that of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

. The cluster's age has been estimated to be 1–2 million years. The descriptive names reflect impressions of the shape of the central pillar rising from the southeast into the central luminous area. The name "Star Queen Nebula" was introduced by Robert Burnham Jr., reflecting his characterization of the central pillar as the Star Queen shown in silhouette.

''"Pillars of Creation"'' region

Pillars of creation 2014 HST WFC3-UVIS full-res denoised

Images produced by Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen using the

in 1995 greatly improved scientific understanding of processes inside the nebula. One of these became famous as the " Pillars of Creation", depicting a large region of star formation. Its small dark pockets are believed to be

protostar A protostar is a very young star that is still gathering mass from its parent molecular cloud. It is the earliest phase in the process of stellar evolution. For a low-mass star (i.e. that of the Sun or lower), it lasts about 500,000 years. The p ...

s ( Bok globules). The pillar structure resembles that of a much larger instance in the Soul Nebula of

Cassiopeia Cassiopeia or Cassiopea may refer to: Greek mythology * Cassiopeia (mother of Andromeda), queen of Aethiopia and mother of Andromeda * Cassiopeia (wife of Phoenix), wife of Phoenix, king of Phoenicia * Cassiopeia, wife of Epaphus, king of Egy ...

, imaged with the

Spitzer Space Telescope The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), was an infrared space telescope launched in 2003, that was deactivated when operations ended on 30 January 2020. Spitzer was the third space telescope dedicate ...

in 2005 equally characterized as "Pillars of Star Creation". or "Pillars of Star Formation". These columns – which resemble stalagmites protruding from the floor of a cavern – are composed of interstellar hydrogen gas and dust, which act as incubators for new stars. Inside the columns and on their surface astronomers have found knots or globules of denser gas, called EGGs ("Evaporating Gaseous Globules"). Stars are being formed inside some of these.

X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

images from the Chandra observatory compared with Hubble's "Pillars" image have shown that X-ray sources (from young stars) do not coincide with the pillars, but rather randomly dot the nebula. Any protostars in the pillars' EGGs are not yet hot enough to emit X-rays. Evidence from the

originally suggested that the pillars in M16 may be threatened by a "past supernova". Hot gas observed by Spitzer in 2007 suggested they were already – likely – being disturbed by a supernova that exploded 8,000 to 9,000 years ago. Due to the distance the main blast of light would have reached

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

for a brief time 1,000 to 2,000 years ago. A more slowly moving, theorized, shock wave would have taken a few thousand years to move through the nebula and would have blown away the delicate pillars. However, in 2014 the pillars were imaged a second time by Hubble, in both visible light and infrared light. The images being 20 years later provided a new, detailed account of the rate of evaporation occurring within the pillars. No supernova is evidenced within them, and it is estimated in some form they still exist – and will appear for at least 100,000 more years. Eagle Nebula 4xHubble WikiSky

References

External links

*
The Eagle's EGGs
–

ESO The European Southern Observatory is an astronomical research organisation. ESO may also refer to: *Employee stock option (also: executive stock option) *'' Ether Saga Odyssey'', a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game *''The Elde ...

Photo Release
ESO: An Eagle of Cosmic Proportions
incl. Photos & Animations
ESO: VST Captures Three-In-One
incl. Photos & Animations

Hubble telescope images on M16
Darkatmospheres.com
Eagle Nebula M16 (wide)

APOD February 8, 2009 picture Eagle Nebula *
Link "commented out" because clicking on it triggers a Trojan Horse virus warning (8 May 2009) -->
Eagle Nebula (Messier 16) at Constellation Guide
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eagle Nebula Carina–Sagittarius Arm Messier objects Serpens Open clusters NGC objects H II regions Sharpless objects 17451231 Star-forming regions

Characteristics

''"Pillars of Creation"'' region

See also

References

External links