@outerspacemag

🏛 PILLARS OF CREATION 🏛 The aptly named Pillars of Creation, featured in this stunning image, are part of an active star-forming region within the nebula and hide newborn stars in their wispy columns. M16 is approx 6,500–7,000 light years away from Earth. 🚀🌍 The pillars are really, REALLY BIG. The pillar on the left is a little over four light-years long, or 40 trillion kilometers! The entire complex is five light-years wide. Our solar system is smaller even than one of the teeny-tiny finger-like protrusions at the tops of the pillars. 😯 The Pillars of Creation probably don’t exist anymore. What you’re actually seeing is 7,000 years old. Astronomers began to speculate that a massive star exploded, somewhere around the upper-left corner of the image above, and therefore swept the entire structure away. 💨 Photo Credit: @_ethereal_astro #outerspacemag #outerspacestore #outerspacemagazine #pillarsofcreation #m16 #starship #Unitedstates #pulsar #neutronstar #nebula #galaxy #whitedwarf #supernova #space #astrophotography #astronomy #cosmology #astronomyfacts #spirituality #stargazing #universe #telescope #astro #astronomer #astrophysics #elonmusk #spacepicture #spacex