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 November 15

                          M16 and the Eagle Nebula
                    Image Credit & Copyright: Martin Pugh

   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 portrait of the region was made with
   groundbased narrow and broadband image data. It 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 at lower left 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: star streams and galaxies
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