The Astonishing Eagle Nebula

The image loading is 81K, so it will take a bit longer than the rest of this site to load. It will, however, display and explain perhaps the most remarkable of all Hubble's discoveries. The eagle nebula (M16) is so named for the distinctive dark formation at its heart, resembling an eagle in flight. It has been visible to us for years, but until the Hubble Space Telescope provided us with a greatly magnified, highly detailed shot we had no way of understanding it's amazing function. Can you make out the figure of the eagle? After it has fully loaded click on it for greater detail.