Scientists have revealed the newest image of the Hubble Space Telescope's iconic Pillars of Creation in 3D that suggests that these gas cloud protrusions will be gone after three million years, which is a short amount of time in astronomical terms. 

These new images show never before seen stars amidst the thick, cosmic gas clouds including incredible details about their structure and orientation in space. Astronomers released these new details along with a new video about the formation of the Pillars of Creation.

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The Pillars reached worldwide fame when the Hubble Space Telescope captured this glorious formation in 1995. Hubble also released a high definition of the image and other objects in the region during its software update.

The finger like cosmic protrusions are made from hot dust and gas which are part of a bigger region in the Eagle Nebula which is a fertile region, a nursery of sorts for new star formations some 7,000 light years away. 

The hot and massive infant stars are so powerful and energy dense that they burn into gas clouds in the nebula, sending out emissions of strong stellar winds and radiation waves that disperse these gases.

However, those gas pockets can tolerate these intense energy star forming regions especially their radiation and stellar winds. These pockets can shield the gas that hides behind it resulting in these pillar like regions of star formtions where astronomers often observe as column shaped gas clouds.According to the European Southern Observatory, these are also called tails or elephant trunks as well.  

As these powerful winds and radiation push down these shields of dense gas, the Pillars of Creation were spawned from this energy from infant stars. Astronomers can now measure the rate of how the Pillars of Creation are slowly being eaten alive by these gas clouds using the MUSE (Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer) instrument which is attached to the ESO's Very Large Telescope in CHile.

The readings reveal that the Pillars are losing energy 70 times the mass of our sun every one million years. It is estimated that the Pillars contain about 200 times the mass of the sun and if this rate still continues, astronomers believe that these majestic gas clouds will evaporate and disappear forever in 3 million years.

This study is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 

Tagspillars of creation, Hubble Space Telescope, ESO, 3D view pillars of creation