Star Formation in the Eagle Nebula

Where do stars form? One place, star forming regions known as EGGs, are being uncovered at the end of this giant pillar of gas and dust. EGGs are dense regions of mostly hydrogen gas that collapse to form stars. Light from the hottest stars causes the end of the pillar to heat up, revealing more EGGs and young stars. This picture was created from exposures lasting over 30 hours with the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, and digitally processed with modern software by experienced volunteers in Argentina. Newborn stars will gradually destroy their birth pillars over the next 100,000 years if a supernova doesn't destroy them first.

Page 2

The road to the stars is very scenic. The road leads to La Silla Observatory, which has a 3.6-meter telescope. There are some futuristic-looking support structures for the planned BlackGEM telescopes, an array of optical telescopes that will help locate optical counterparts to LIGO and other detectors. There is more. The night sky is lit up by red airglow, while the central band of the Milky Way is seen across the image center. Jupiter is visible just above the band near the image center, while Saturn is visible just above the dome. The LMC and SMC are the two largest satellites of the Milky Way. Multiple 15-second exposures were taken on June 30 to create the featured image panorama. La Silla experienced a total eclipse of the Sun.