Nebulae: the birth place of stars.

 Star Birth Clouds in M16 
  STELLAR "EGGS" EMERGE FROM MOLECULAR CLOUD (Star-Birth Clouds in M16)

  This eerie, dark structure, resembling an imaginary sea serpent's head, is a column of cool molecular hydrogen gas (two
  atoms of hydrogen in each molecule) and dust that is an incubator for new stars. The stars are embedded inside finger-like
  protrusions extending from the top of the nebula. Each "fingertip" is somewhat larger than our own solar system.

  The pillar is slowly eroding away by the ultraviolet light from nearby hot stars, a process called "photoevaporation". As it
  does, small globules of especially dense gas buried within the cloud is uncovered. These globules have been dubbed
  "EGGs" -- an acronym for "Evaporating Gaseous Globules". The shadows of the EGGs protect gas behind them, resulting
  in the finger-like structures at the top of the cloud.

  Forming inside at least some of the EGGs are embryonic stars -- stars that abruptly stop growing when the EGGs are
  uncovered and they are separated from the larger reservoir of gas from which they were drawing mass. Eventually the stars
  emerge, as the EGGs themselves succumb to photoevaporation.

  The stellar EGGS are found, appropriately enough, in the "Eagle Nebula" (also called M16 -- the 16th object in Charles
  Messier's 18th century catalog of "fuzzy" permanent objects in the sky), a nearby star-forming region 7,000 light-years
  away in the constellation Serpens.

  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. Red shows
  emission from singly-ionized sulfur atoms. Green shows emission from hydrogen. Blue shows light emitted by doubly-
  ionized oxygen atoms.

  Credit: Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen (Arizona State University), and NASA
 

                          Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
 

                                      Created by R. Mark Elowitz
                                    Maintained byGuy K. McArthu