Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)

This NASA's Hubble Space Telescope photograph captures the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. This cosmic pinnacle lies within a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. Infant stars buried inside the pillar fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks. Nestled inside this dense mountain are fledgling stars. Scorching radiation and fast winds (streams of charged particles) from the hot newborn stars in the nebula are shaping and compressing the pillar, causing more new stars to form within it. Streamers of hot ionized gas can be seen flowing off the ridges of the structure, and wispy veils of dust, illuminated by starlight, float around its peaks. The pillar is resisting being eroded by radiation from nearby hot stars.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2010/news-2010-13

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

Image Use Policy: http://hubblesite.org/copyright/