The Hubble Space Telescope image shown above is about the birth of new stars! Few Universe pictures have generated as much curiosity as the picture of a portion of the Eagle Nebula shown above. The Eagle Nebula is an interstellar region of gas, plasma and dust in which new stars are formed (hence the name, “Pillars of Creation”). The materials in this region continuously clump together to form larger and larger masses which ultimately become so big that they form stars.
The Eagle Nebula is located about 6,500 light years away from the Earth in the direction of the Serpens constellation. It is about 20 light years in length. The towers of gas that form the emission nebula are trillions of miles in length.






