Astronomy Picture of the Day——老鹰星云的精灵

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

The Fairy of Eagle Nebula

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, The Hubble Heritage Team, (STScI/AURA)

Explanation:The dust sculptures of the Eagle Nebula are evaporating. As powerful starlightwhittles away these cool cosmic mountains, the statuesque pillars that remainmight be imagined as mythical beasts. Featured here is one of several strikingdust pillars of the Eagle Nebula that might be described as a gigantic alienfairy. This fairy, however, is ten light years tall and spews radiation muchhotter than common fire. The greater Eagle Nebula, M16, is actually a giantevaporating shell of gas and dust inside of which is a growing cavity filledwith a spectacular stellar nursery currently forming an open cluster of stars.This great pillar, which is about 7,000 light years away, will likely evaporateaway in about 100,000 years. The featured image in scientifically re-assignedcolors was released in 2005 as part of the fifteenth anniversary celebration ofthe launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.

老鹰星云的精灵

解释：老鹰星云的尘埃雕塑正在蒸发。当强大的星光削掉这些寒冷的宇宙山峰，这些雕像般的柱子就可能呈现出神话般的怪兽。这里是老鹰星云数个令人震撼的尘埃柱子之一，也可以被描述为巨大的外星精灵。然而，这个精灵高达10光年，正在发出比普通火焰热得多的辐射。老鹰星云M16是一个巨大的气体和尘埃壳，其内部是一个正在成长的空洞，充斥着壮观的恒星保育院，目前正在形成疏散星团。这根大柱子距离约7000光年，可能在约10万年内蒸发殆尽。