🌫️ Nebula
Pillars of Creation
Towers of gas and dust where new stars are being born.
- Distance
- 6,500 light-years away
- Size
- 4 light-years across
Did you know?
- The tallest pillar is about 4 light-years tall.
- They are part of the Eagle Nebula.
Photographed or visited by
Hubble Space Telescope
Thirty-six years above the weather, and still working.
The life of a starA step in a star’s life: born in a cloud
Compare Pillars of Creation with the Milky WaySide by side, to scale, in the app
More NASA photos of Pillars of CreationStraight from NASA’s image library, in the app
Explore more
All of deep space
The Sun
Our star, an ordinary one that keeps everything here alive.
Betelgeuse
A red supergiant in Orion that will one day explode.
Alpha Centauri
The closest star system to the Sun.
Eta Carinae
A pair of giant stars, one of them about 90 times heavier than the Sun.
Mira
A red giant star racing through space with a tail like a comet.
Zeta Ophiuchi
A runaway star, flung out when its partner exploded.