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Tuesday, 14 May, 2002, 19:08 GMT 20:08 UK
Hubble's 'Pillars of Creation' are fading
![]() The original image was taken at visible wavelengths
The Eagle Nebula, as it is known, was described at the time as a region of intense star formation; you can see bright stars sprinkled across the image and embedded in the vast columns of gas and dust. Now, however, the latest observations (looking at wavelengths outside the optical region of the spectrum) suggest the Eagle is anything but a stellar breeding ground - it is, in fact, producing very few stars and fading fast. A different picture Professor Rodger Thompson, of the University of Arizona, US, has been observing the Eagle Nebula using the Nicmos (Near-infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer) on the Hubble Space Telescope. He told BBC News Online: "They look like very dark, dense columns of gas and dust. But when you view them in the infrared, you get a different picture."
The nebula - the word comes from the Latin for cloud - has been influenced by a cluster of very bright, type O stars nearby. They have shaped and illuminated the nebula (and initiated star formation within it) whilst at the same time working to destroy it. The O stars, much larger and far more luminous than our Sun, would have formed quickly when the nebula was young. Although such stars burn for only a few million years at most, their influence on the development of the nebula has been profound. Just a handful The radiation and stellar winds from the O stars have evaporated much of the material from the nebula. In some parts of the nebula, however, the outpourings of the O stars have met resistance. Unable to evaporate very dense regions of dust and gas, these outpourings have instead compressed material, triggering a burst of star formation. Protected from the O stars' ravages behind a dust "capstone", huge pillars have reached out into space. "The optical picture alone is very confusing," Professor Thompson told BBC News Online. "You need to look in the infrared to understand what is going on and what happened in the past." Although the tips of the pillars do act as a stellar nursery, astronomers now think even there not many stars are being formed - certainly no more than a handful. Undiminished beauty "In the tips, we can see five or six places where stars are forming. But we don't know if they are multiple or single stars or even if they are reflections from dust clouds," said Professor Thompson.
There is no denying the beauty of the original Hubble image, but for some, knowing that the pillars will fade in a million years or so means the picture has lost a little of its appeal. This revised analysis of the Eagle Nebula is in stark contrast to what we now know about star formation in the mighty nebula in Orion. Evidence gathered in recent years has shown it to be an even more vigorous site of starbirth than had been thought, with tens of thousands of stars being born.
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