Eagle Nebula and the Pillars of Creation
Situated in the heart of the summer Milky Way, this nebula represents the best proof that the galaxy is still alive and in continuous evolution. This enormous expanse of ionized gas is heated and made visible by the numerous hot, young stars born within. You can notice dark columns inside, called the Pillars of Creation. They aren’t zones lacking gas; in fact, they are anything but. There inside, hidden from view, those columns of dense , cold gas and dust are giving birth to new stars and probably planetary systems. Subjected to their own gravitational pull, those dense clouds of gas and dust begin a slow gravitational collapse which breaks them into many smaller clouds from which the single stars will be born. The compression increases the heat in the central area, where a protostar is formed: an aggregate of gas, much more extensive than the star will be, and which only emits gravitational energy. The rotation of the gas, for the principle of preserving the angular mom...