Cosmology Views

X-ray point sources around the Eagle Nebula

The first image from Chandra has many X-ray point sources.

excerpt:
The Chandra data reveal X-rays from hot outer atmospheres from stars. In this image, low, medium, and high-energy X-rays detected by Chandra have been colored red, green, and blue.

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observations:

High energy X-rays come from a source of energetic synchrotron radiation, not heat.

There is a bright blue source near the top of the left pillar.
The outer edge above this blue object looks rather like the solar corona, electric discharge activity with the plasma visible in diffused clouds or sheets.

The top of the central pillar has what looks like a coronal loop.
The top of the right pillar has a V with a stronger plasma discharge than along the edges below it.

Near the lower left region in the image are 2 blue objects, one above the other, with the lower one on the edge of the structure probably not by coincidence. The lower object might be the knot mentioned below.

Directly to the right is a luminous plasma filament.

The pillars in the Eagle Nebula:

link-pillars

Here is a much wider field showing the many bright stars behind these pillars:

link-EagleNebula

In the wide field there are quite a few 'stars in a line' suggesting the EU star formation method between a birkelund current pair.

The background for these pillars implies the electrical discharges observed along the nebula edges are driven by the many bright stars behind these stuctures.

These structures in the nebula must have bonds to maintain their shape and edges suggesting plasma not neutral particles.

from Wikipedia:
the "Pillars of Creation" [is] a large region of star formation.

These columns – which resemble stalagmites protruding from the floor of a cavern – are composed of interstellar hydrogen gas and dust, which act as incubators for new stars. Inside the columns and on their surface astronomers have found knots or globules of denser gas, called EGGs ("Evaporating Gaseous Globules"). Stars are being formed inside some of these EGGs.

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comment:

Stars are composed of metallic hydrogen, the lattice of protons maintained by electrons.

There is no dust needed in making a star. The EGG sounds like denser hydrogen leading to metallic hydrogen with more plasma under compression.

If dust clouds are compressed, the result could be planets but not stars.

These "pillars of creation" might be creating stars along the edges where the electrical activity increases. The required compression probably will not occur within the pillars where the gas and dust mix is described as an incubator for a star's creation.

I suspect dust is actually not needed in creating a star.

I suspect dust is actually not needed in creating a star.

However the pillars suggest the electrical discharge activity along the edges of the dust structure is involved so the dust as plasma apparently facilitates in the electrical activity which is required for compression.