M16 Widefield Eagle Nebula

M16 Eagle NebulaNGC 6611 The Hubble Space Telescope's 1995 image of pillars of dust and gas, light-years long, within the M16 Eagle Nebula was sensational.Made in near infrared light with the European Southern Observatory's 8.2-meter Antu telescope, this wide-field image makes the pillars seem more transparent, as the longer wavelengths partially penetrate the obscuring dust.While the Hubble image showed the pillars' startling surface details - over 70 opaque, finger-shaped lumps of material dubbed evaporating gaseous globules or EGGs, the near infrared view has allowed astronomers to peer inside.