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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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.

See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

Star EGGs in the Eagle Nebula

Explanation: Where do stars form? One place, star forming regions known as “EGGs”, are uncovered at the end of this giant pillar of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula ( M 16). EGGs, short for evaporating gaseous globules , are dense regions of mostly molecular hydrogen gas that fragment and gravitationally collapse to form stars . Light from the hottest and brightest of these new stars heats the end of the pillar and causes further evaporation of gas - revealing yet more EGGs and more young stars. This picture was taken by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera on board the Hubble Space Telescope .

Date October 22, 2006
Credit Credit: J. Hester & P. Scowen ( Arizona State U. ), HST , NASA
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.