Astronomy Picture of the Day

Explanation: What lights up this castle of star formation? The familiar Eagle Nebula glows much like a neon sign, but in many colours at once. The above photograph is a composite of three of these glowing gas colours. In particular the glowing red Sulfur gas of the nebula nicely outlines some of the denser star forming knots. Energetic light from young massive stars causes the gas to glow and effectively boils away part of the dust and gas from its birth pillar. Many of these stars will explode after several million years, returning most of their elements back to the nebula which formed them. This process is forming an open cluster of stars known as M16.