ExploraTour: A Peek into the Lives of the Stars
Dust Cloud Where Stars Are Born
This is a dust cloud in the Eagle Nebula photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. A nebula is a cloud of dust and gas in space. The dark smoky-looking mountain is actually made of cool gas and dust.
This cloud was originally much bigger. If you look closely you can see streamers of gas boiling away from the main cloud.
Buried deep in the main cloud are denser pockets of gas that appear as the cloud is evaporated away.
Inside some of these pockets of gas are objects that will someday be stars.