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Appearing like a winged fairy-tale creature poised on a pedestal, this
object is actually
a billowing tower of cold gas and dust rising from a stellar nursery called
the Eagle
Nebula. The soaring tower is 9.5 light-years or about 55 trillion miles
high, about twice
the distance from our Sun to the next nearest star. Stars in the Eagle
Nebula are born
in clouds of cold hydrogen gas that reside in chaotic neighborhoods and the
tower is a
giant incubator for those newborn stars. The bumps and fingers of material
in the
center of the tower are examples of stellar birthing areas. These regions
may look small
but they are roughly the size of our solar system. The fledgling stars
continued to grow
as they fed off the surrounding gas cloud. They abruptly stopped growing
when light from
the star cluster uncovered their gaseous cradles, separating them from their
gas supply. |
