Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2019 August 10

                                M16 Close Up
               Image Credit & Copyright: Ignacio Diaz Bobillo

   Explanation: A star cluster around 2 million years young surrounded by
   natal clouds of dust and glowing gas, M16 is also known as The Eagle
   Nebula. This beautifully detailed image of the region adopts the
   colorful Hubble palette and includes cosmic sculptures made famous in
   Hubble Space Telescope close-ups of the starforming complex. Described
   as elephant trunks or Pillars of Creation, dense, dusty columns rising
   near the center are light-years in length but are gravitationally
   contracting to form stars. Energetic radiation from the cluster stars
   erodes material near the tips, eventually exposing the embedded new
   stars. Extending from the ridge of bright emission left of center is
   another dusty starforming column known as the Fairy of Eagle Nebula.
   M16 lies about 7,000 light-years away, an easy target for binoculars or
   small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split
   constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake).

                   Tomorrow's picture: bridge to the stars
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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