I guess in a violent demonstration of the fragility and tenuous existence of things in nature, the subject of one of the most iconic images taken by Hubble, the three pillars of creation, has been destroyed. Or rather it was destroyed about 6000 years ago, it has just taken this long for the light to reach us. NASA and Hubble scientists using cameras linked to the powerful Spitzer telescope have detected that the pillars were super heated and then blown apart by the shockwave from a supernova blast. The nature of physics being what they are though, they will still be visible to generations of amateur astronomers to come using slightly less exotic telescopes :-)

here is the latest image showing the scene of destruction - an image to scale of the pillars is super imposed slightly off centre to show their original scale and position in the debris field.

WOW .. I have always been fascinated by that whole time\distance aspect of the light coming from stars that we look at everyday

I only understand English language, sorry. What's "fragility" and "tenuous"? I know "WOW", that's about it.

~walks back into cave~

I teasin' Uncle Phil, I teasin'!! Very interesting piece and subject!! Agree with Special K on the whole time and distance travel thing-a-ma-bob!! Amazing what we see that's not there...

~ponders my life and wonders who will be able to still view it once physical being dissolved~

These things always fascinate me. I think it’s partly because of the size of them (the tallest pillar is over a light year high) and partly because of the time scale. These things happened long before Christ was born. Other celestial events happened before man emerged on earth. Thanks for the very interesting post Phil.

~wonders if Stanley ® makes a tape measure to measure light years~

How tall would 6' be in light years anywho?

Sorry, too much scotch...not tryin' to kill the thread...just interested.

What amazes me most is that something so vast could be destroyed so quickly...

Randy a light year is the distance in miles light would travel in a year i.e. 5.87849981 × 10 to the power 12 miles. so very big indeed. 6 foot as a percentage of a light year would be 1.93308441 × 10 to the power of minus 16.

the big lesson learned from this event is that nature and beauty is fleeting so make the most of it whilst you can (and photograph it at every opportunity) and that we are fortunate indeed to have seen such a thing at all.

Thanks Phil!! I agree and have my camera with me at all times!! I was amazed since starting amateur photography (Oct. 2005) just how much more I now see, when before I would just pass things by. All those years taking things for granted, I guess we all do that to a varying degree.

I'll keep clickin' if you keep lookin' mister!! 8~)

Amazing.. these things fascinate me... thanks Phil

fleeting? .. fleeting is a bug chomping on the stem of a flower as it begins to reach for the sky

NOT .. 6000 years .. :o)

in terms of the history of the universe, six millenia is barely a blink of the eye :-)

...for all we know, the north star could be gone by now and a nearby star has already gone supernova? :) Comforting, isn't it. Would we fly off the earth...uh, at the same time we are blown to bits that is? ...i'm also just wondering.

..Thanks for the link. It puts our all powerful nuclear weapons to shame. :-S

how long will it take to know if our star went supernova ..

I'm talking about Paris Hilton

...oh, about 30 seconds if you were paying attention to the news.