On April 18, 2025, the Hubble Space Telescope celebrated its 35th anniversary with a remarkable new image from deep space. It revealed a towering structure, a 9.5-light-year-tall column of gas and dust, within the famous Eagle Nebula. It’s a stellar spire, shaped by the winds and light of young stars, standing like a cosmic monument in a cradle of starbirth. This newly processed image isn’t just visually breathtaking. It also provides rich insights into how stars form and how powerful forces sculpt the galaxy. With sharper clarity and richer color than ever before, Hubble once again turns our gaze to the cosmos and stirs the imagination.
What are we looking at?
This cosmic spire sits within the Eagle Nebula, or M16, a large star-forming region located about 7,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Serpens. This particular structure rises dramatically from the surrounding gas clouds. Its size is difficult to grasp—about 90 trillion kilometers long, nearly double the length of the Pillars of Creation.
The spire is not solid. It’s made of cold gas and interstellar dust, dense enough in places to collapse under gravity and give birth to stars. Inside it, new suns are likely forming. Around it, the energetic radiation from nearby massive stars is slowly eroding it, chipping away the spire’s edges, sculpting arcs and knots, and triggering even more star formation as it goes. It’s a dynamic, living structure. And now we can see it in more detail than ever.
ESA/Hubble & NASA, K. Noll
What shapes a spire?
Massive stars nearby play the key role. These hot, young stars blast out intense ultraviolet light and stellar winds, streams of charged particles moving hundreds of kilometers per second. This radiation eats away at cooler gas and dust, especially at the edges. But where material is denser, like in the spire, it resists erosion and holds its shape longer. This tug-of-war sculpts the gas into towers, cliffs, and globules. It also compresses the material inside. As pressure increases, parts of the spire collapse under their own weight. Inside, fusion ignites, and new stars are born. You’re not just looking at a cloud. You’re watching a forge. This is how stars come to life.
The Eagle Nebula is just one of many stellar nurseries in our galaxy. Others include the Orion Nebula, the Carina Nebula, and the Lagoon Nebula. Each has unique features, but they all follow similar physical rules. By studying many of them, especially with different instruments like Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers can build a complete picture of how stars form, how they shape their environment, and how galaxies build themselves over time.
Journey through the stellar spire
You can also enjoy a pan of the region here:
This image is a gift for us on Earth, a reminder of what science and curiosity can reveal when they work together. The Eagle Nebula’s stellar spire is more than just a pretty sight. It’s a dynamic structure shaped by the powerful forces of starbirth. It shows us how radiation and matter interact. It hints at the beginnings of new stars. And it reminds us that the universe is always at work, even when we’re not looking. Thanks to Hubble, we are looking. And thanks to this new image, we’re seeing more than ever. So here’s to 35 years of cosmic vision and to the towering spire that stands as both a symbol of the stars to come and a celebration of the telescope that let us see them.
Clear skies!
