---
title: "Eagle Nebula: facts, distance and size – Krillion Space"
description: "The Eagle Nebula is a large cloud of glowing gas and dust lit up by a cluster of young, hot stars. Size, distance and sourced facts."
url: https://krilion.app/atlas/eagle-nebula
language: en-US
---

# Eagle Nebula

Pillars of Creation. Depth 39 on the Krillion Space voyage, in the Milky Way.

The Eagle Nebula is a large cloud of glowing gas and dust lit up by a cluster of young, hot stars. A small part of it holds the Pillars of Creation, towers of cold gas where new stars are still forming, made famous by Hubble and later by Webb.

![The Eagle Nebula at depth 39 in Krillion Space, painted by the game (an illustration, not a photograph).](https://krilion.app/assets/atlas/eagle-nebula.webp)

## Fact sheet

- **Type:** Emission nebula with a young open star cluster
- **Distance:** About 6,500 to 7,000 light-years from Earth
- **Size:** About 70 by 55 light-years
- **Constellation:** Serpens
- **Position in the sky:** Right ascension 18h 19m, declination −13° 49′
- **Seeing it from Earth:** Its star cluster shows up in a small telescope (the whole object is about magnitude 6), best seen around August, but seeing the Pillars themselves needs a large telescope and excellent conditions.
- **On the voyage:** Depth 39, in the Milky Way section of the route, between the Crab Nebula and Cygnus X-1

## Things to know

- Messier 16 is really two objects in one: a glowing gas cloud (IC 4703) and the young star cluster NGC 6611 whose light makes it shine. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-16/))
- Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux discovered it in 1745. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-16/))
- The Pillars of Creation are only a small feature of the nebula, roughly 4 to 5 light-years tall. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-16/))
- Hubble first photographed the pillars in 1995 and returned in 2014, and in 2022 Webb's near-infrared camera showed newborn stars glowing inside and around them. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-takes-star-filled-portrait-of-pillars-of-creation/))
- Some of the stars forming in the pillars are thought to be only a few hundred thousand years old. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-takes-star-filled-portrait-of-pillars-of-creation/))

## Sources

- [NASA – Messier 16 (The Eagle Nebula)](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-16/)
- [NASA – NASA's Webb Takes Star-Filled Portrait of Pillars of Creation](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-takes-star-filled-portrait-of-pillars-of-creation/)

## On the route

- Previous landmark: [Crab Nebula](https://krilion.app/atlas/crab-nebula)
- Next landmark: [Cygnus X-1](https://krilion.app/atlas/cygnus-x1)
- [The whole Star Atlas](https://krilion.app/atlas)
- [Fly the voyage yourself](https://krilion.app/d/): every right answer warps your ship one stop deeper.