Eagle Nebula [SEP] time of discovery
Eagle Nebula
The Eagle Nebula (catalogued as Messier 16 or M16, and as NGC 6611, and also known as the Star Queen Nebula and The Spire) is a young open cluster of stars in the constellation Serpens, discovered by Jean-Philippe de Chéseaux in 1745–46. Both the "Eagle" and the "Star Queen" refer to visual impressions of the dark silhouette near the center of the nebula, an area made famous as the "Pillars of Creation" imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. The nebula contains
them creating H II regions. Many ultra-compact H II regions, the precursors to massive protostars, are associated with embedded clusters.
Over time, radiation pressure from the stellar objects will disperse the molecular cloud and give rise to the better known open cluster.
Several famous embedded clusters include the Trapezium cluster in the Orion Nebula, L1688 in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, NGC 2244 in the Rosette Nebula, the cluster in the Trifid Nebula, NGC 6611 in the Eagle Nebula, and Trumpler 14, 15,