The 'Pillars of Creation' have crumbled- a long, long time ago

Remember this famous early Hubble picture of the so-called "Pillars of Creation," a star-forming region in the Eagle Nebula?

Well, the "Pillars" are gone.

Telescopes of any variety are time machines, as well as optical devices. The "Pillars," for example, were 7,000 light years away- which means that the picture actually shows the formation as it was 7.000 years ago! When you look at a deep-space photograph or through a telescope at a distant object, you're actually looking back at a moment in the past, at something which is not even there right now. If nothing else, it's long since moved on. What we're seeing is merely the light that left the object back then.

As it happens, indications from infrared photographs taken in 1996 and released last month indicated that the region was about played out.

But now, still more recent photos of the region show a powerful supernova- the explosion of a star- the shockwave from which undoubtedly destroyed the "Pillars" thousands of years ago.

Nothing material lasts forever, it seems. Even the "Pillars of Creation."