The Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula are some of the most famous, and most spectacular, dusty regions of a star-forming nebula ever captured by any telescope anywhere. (NASA, ESA / HUBBLE AND THE HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM)

This Is Why ‘Pillars’ In Space Mean Destruction, Not Creation

By time you see a pillar at all, almost all of your ‘formation’ is already finished.

In the heart of the Eagle Nebula, the iconic Pillars of Creation loom as one of Hubble’s greatest all-time sights.

The Eagle Nebula contains thousands of new stars, a brilliant central star cluster, and various evaporating gaseous globules containing active star formation and brilliant young stars of their own. The gaseous regions are in the process of evaporating. (NASA / ESA & HUBBLE; WIKISKY TOOL)

But very little is still being created in there, compared to the destruction that’s taking place.

Using Chandra, researchers detected over 1,700 X-ray sources in the field of the Eagle Nebula. Two thirds of these sources are likely young stars located in the Nebula, and some of them are seen in this small field of view around the Pillars of Creation. There is no evidence here, or in the surrounding environment, of a recent supernova. (X-RAY: NASA/CXC/INAF/M.GUARCELLO ET AL.; OPTICAL: NASA/STSCI)

It’s true: there are new stars being formed inside, as the gas gravitational collapses down to grow the largest clumps of matter.

The pillars of creation (left) and the fairy (upside down, top right) are two of the iconic features that Hubble has imaged. Within, new stars still form as the gas and dust evaporates, but it’s largely the stars external to these nebulous regions that are boiling away the gas clumps. (ESO / VST SURVEY)

But the reason you have a pillar shape at all is because of nearby, bright, external stars, which boil the gas away.