Launch pad

Your first contact with the universe

An underground lake is found on Mars, Einstein's theory has been put to the test and the spacecraft of our Solar System return more stunning imagery

The Eagle Nebula, also known as Messier 16, is one of the most famous nebulae around as it contains an iconic feature within: the Pillars of Creation. These pillars are long stretches of gas and dust from which stars are born. It was famously first photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 and continues to be the subject of the long-serving spacecraft, jointly operated by space agencies ESA and NASA.

In this updated photograph, X-ray observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have been combined with optical data to reveal the extreme energies being emitted from the hot outer atmospheres of stars.