Pillars of Creation
Hubble's most iconic image
Towering columns of cold gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula (M16), being slowly eroded by ultraviolet light from nearby young stars.
Image: NASA / ESA / Hubble
Vital statistics
Located in
Eagle Nebula (M16)
Distance
~6,500 light-years
Height
~4–5 light-years tall
Did you know
May already be destroyed — we'd see it in ~1,000 years.
Fact 01
First imaged by Hubble in 1995, revisited by JWST in 2022.
Fact 02
Each pillar is a star-forming region.
Fact 03
Research & publications
Jump straight into peer-reviewed papers, preprints and authoritative references for Pillars of Creation.
arXiv (preprints)
Open-access preprints in physics & astrophysics.
NASA ADS
The definitive bibliographic database for astronomy.
Google Scholar
Cross-publisher academic search.
Nature
Peer-reviewed articles in Nature & sister journals.
Wikipedia
Encyclopedic overview & onward references.
Tip: ask the Research AI for a curated reading list → /research
