Celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope with a gigantic tower of gas and dust

Images of the Eagle Nebula have been captured before, but not with this much color. As part of their ongoing celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope's 35th anniversary, NASA and ESA have shared a new image of the Eagle Nebula, specifically a "spire of cosmic gas and dust" that's in a region last captured by the telescope two decades ago. The tower in the image is 9.5 light years tall, according to NASA and ESA, and only a portion of the larger Eagle Nebula, which is considered a "nursery" for young stars. The tower's unique mix of oranges and dark blues is thanks to a combination of swirling hydrogen gas and space dust. The nebula's "Eagle" name comes from how it looks when you pan across it, where edge clouds like the one in the image look like the wings of a giant bird of prey. ESA/Hubble & NASA, K. Noll As of late, the James Webb Space Telescope has become the designated source for spectacular images of space, but clearly Hubble still has some juice in it, too. Some of that is ... Read full article.