M16 (Messier 16) is known by amateur astronomers and astrophotographers as the Eagle Nebula. It is one of the brightest nebulae in the night sky, and is visible in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
The Eagle Nebula is a large cloud of gas and dust where new stars are born. When you take a look at the wispy glow of this nebula through an astronomical telescope or binoculars, you are witnessing a stellar object that is approximately 7000 light-years away.
The newborn stars in the Eagle Nebula are very hot, which illuminates M16’s hydrogen gas as seen in the Pillars of Creation, made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope.
These intense pillars are slowly evaporating under the intense glare of the nearby massive, newborn stars. The Pillars of Creation appear relatively small within the nebula itself, but in actuality, they are larger than our entire solar system.