659
Pillars of Creation

These eerie, dark pillar-like structures are columns of cool interstellar hydrogen gas and dust that are also incubators for new stars. They are part of the „Eagle Nebula“, a nearby star-forming region 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Serpens. Dense clouds of molecular hydrogen gas and dust have survived longer than their surroundings in the face of a flood of ultraviolet light from massive newborn stars. The tallest pillar is about about 4 light-years long from base to tip. The picture was taken on April 1, 1995 with the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The color image is constructed from three separate images taken in the light of emission from different types of atoms. (13021528) (10)