A star is born right in front of our eyes, says NASA
By Adrian Berry, Science Correspondent
TOWERING columns of gas and dust six million million miles high are giving astronomers their first ever direct view of stars being born.
The Hubble Space Telescope orbiting 360 miles above the Earth found these vast shapes
that resemble stalagmites in the Eagle Nebula in the constellation of Serpens.
By coincidence, six million million miles is one light year, the distance light travels in a year. Thus it would take a year for light to travel from one end of one of the columns to the other.
The Sun and its furthest planets would easily fit into the tiny illuminated protrusions at their uppermost tips in which newly-forming stars are embedded.
The scene captured by Hubble occurred 7,000 years ago but its image is only now reaching the Earth.
"We were just blown away when we saw the pictures for the first time," said Dr Jeff Hester, a Nasa astronomer. "For a long time we have speculated why stars are the sizes they are. We seem to be watching at least one such process at work right in front of our eyes."
The photograph shows about 50 stars being formed inside globules of very dense hydrogen gas. The brighter regions are those where fledgling stars have just undergone thermonuclear ignition and begun shining.
The holes in the clouds are caused by the new stars. Emitting enormous energy, they blow away most of the dust, boring out cavities for themselves in which their light can be faintly seen.
In a few million years, the clouds will be blown away and the Eagle Nebula will become a mass of bright stars.
In 1997, an improved camera will be installed on Hubble to see in detail some tiny comets at the very edge of our solar system.
* After the picture was shown on CNN, the American television network was flooded with calls from viewers saying they could see the face of Jesus in it.
Nova: a towering column of gas and dust 6,000,000,000,000 miles high in the Eagle Nebula
