APOD: M16: Pillars of Creation (2007 Feb 18)

[maks]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070218.html

Observing the stellar nursery it came to my mind that not necessarily all the gaseous globules have origin within a particular interstellar dust cloud. It is quite possible, that in the galaxies many sub-solar celestial bodies invisible to us are roaming around. In particular moment of time when they are surrounded by one of the interstellar dust clouds, they accrete more material and eventually become stars. If they don’t become stars, after the dust is blown away by stellar (solar) winds, they become invisible again even to Hubble, and continue roaming through the universe a little bit heavier until next encounter with the interstellar gas.

It is also quite obvious that because of stellar winds gravitational separation of dust/gas must occur. The lighter molecules are blown away and they travel by far greater speed than heavier ones. If the bodies are accreting a matter from the cloud lanes composed of heavier elements, the ratio between lighter and heavier elements is in flavor of the latest. If they become stars, they eventually still accrete the heavier dust particles, while light ones are blown away. Consequently the heavier stars must have ratio light/heavy elements in the favor of the heavier ones.
:idea:

[Jon Ebert]

Don't you wish your mind had the capacity to truly understand these pillars? My feeble mind wants to imagine them as thunderstormlike clouds but of course that is so wrong. It would be much easier to comprehend if the activity that takes place here was time lapsed to say, one frame every thousand or ten thousand years. What would we see? Would it look like the EGG's were dripping off of the pillars like hot wax and then igniting into white hot fireballs? I wonder if all of those stars that appear above the pillars were spewed-out from the pillars. How about the really bright star that is at the bottom right of the left pillar and the outstretched cloud just to its left with a curvature that is near the star. Did the star evaporate the cloud into that curved shape or is that big star nowhere near these pillars? See the very red cloud near the top of the middle pillar? Is that hydrogen rich and condensing into a star? What is the source of the powerful illumination at the tops of the pillars? Is there some source of light behind the pillars or is it from within the cloud of gas and dust? How will we ever know?

JE

[kovil]

It looks like a lava lamp in action.

The globs drawing off could be like eta Carinae , a supermassive star, but in pre-ignition formation.

What strikes me as unusual is the opacity of the clouds and their long shapes. I am not sure of the size of these structures, how many light years tall are they? and LY's thick. That correct info would give me better speculation powers.

It also looks like thunderheads where clouds are rising up and expanding, tho I suspect the opposite is occuring, and they are condensing. The movie of the universe is running backwards here in that case!

It might be that several dozen supermassive stars all novaed at just about the same time (few million years +- of each other) and their converging shock waves focused the dust cloud of previous massive novas into the tower shapes. Then over time gravity drew them in more densely.

Like you say a time lapse movie of all this would be worth a 'king of kings' ransom.

[harry]

Hello All

Re:

M16: Pillars of Creation
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070218.html


Look also at

The Eagle Nebula (M16):
Peering Into the Pillars Of Creation
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/m16/

Very few X-ray sources are found in the pillars themselves. This suggests that the Eagle Nebula may be past its star-forming prime, since young stars are usually bright X-ray sources. However, there are two X-ray objects found near the tips of the pillars. One is a young star about 4 or 5 times as massive as the Sun, visible as the blue source near the tip of the pillar on the left. The other is a lower mass star near the top of the other pillar that is so faint it is not visible in the composite image.

Messier 16
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/messier/m/m016.html

It is actually still in the process of forming new stars, this formation taking place near the dark "elephant trunks" which are well visible in our photograph, as well as in AAT pictures and other images of M16. A deeper insight in the star formation process could be obtained from the HST images of M16, published in November 1995; moreover, they were used for an animation simulating the approach to this star forming region, and we provide some screen sized images (suitable as backgrounds for your computer screen).

Is this a star forming region or not?

[NoelC]

Harry, the answer is an unqualified "yes"!

In all seriousness, I read it as an "old star forming region".

-Noel