With the development of technology, mankind got the opportunity to study not only its own planet, but also the worlds of deep space. Many constellations and nebulae excite the minds of great scientists who are trying to explore as many corners of the vast universe as possible. Some of the objects discovered by astronomers deserve special attention. Like the Eagle Nebula.
Opening
The Eagle Nebula was discovered between 1745 and 1746 by Jean Philippe Lois De Chezo, a Swiss astronomer and physicist. He described it as a constellation between Sagittarius and Ophiuchus. And already in 1764 this discovery was repeated by another scientist named Charles Messier.
From the moment of discovery, the nebula began to show special interest. Several other famous astronomers have studied this object. They counted from fifty to one hundred stars in their observations. The first pictures of the Eagle Nebula were taken in 1895 by Edward Emerson Barnard, an American observer astronomer.
Properties
The Eagle Nebula is located at a distance of about 7 thousand km.from the earth. The brightest stars have an apparent magnitude (a measure of the amount of light an observer sees) of about +8.24. By comparison, our Sun, which is 400,000 times brighter than the full Moon, has an apparent magnitude of -26.7.
The nebula is located in the constellation Serpens. It measures approximately 70 × 55 light years. Its age is about 5.5 million years.
Unusual objects
A lot of pictures have been taken of the Eagle Nebula, and now there are a lot of interesting objects christened with various poetic names.
Many people know the photo "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula, which went beyond astronomy and went into popular culture. But this phenomenon is large accumulations of gases and dust, which, in turn, are the material for the creation of new stars.
The properties of light allow us to observe these pillars to this day, but, in fact, they no longer represent such a familiar image in a photograph. About 8000-9000 thousand years ago there was a supernova explosion, and a few years later the blast wave overtook the Pillars of Creation, thereby destroying it. According to reputable astronomers, humanity will be able to admire such an object for about a thousand years.
Another interesting object is the "Fairy" dust column. It also forms starsbut, unlike the Pillars of Creation, it did not fall under the destructive influence of a supernova. The dust column is very reminiscent of the image of a fairy, for which he received such a specific name.
Eagle Eggs is an interesting region of the Eagle Nebula, which, unfortunately, does not have a meaningful name. Like other objects, it is a place of accumulation of dust and gas, due to which it may lose its primary form in the future. The history of the formation of the Eagle Eggs object is extremely pragmatic. The thing is that English-speaking scientists initially gave this phenomenon the name "evaporating gaseous globules", which in translation into English has the abbreviation EGG, which forms the word, translated into Russian, meaning "egg".
