The Eagle Nebula has a very dramatic appearance with its three large columns. The column shown on the left of this illustration is three light years in length. My illustration of the Eagle Nebula and its star cluster shows not only the beauty of nebulae, which inspires me, but also the relationship between nebulae and galaxies. Most of the mass in nebulae is made up of the debris from supernovas. A supernova is an exploding star.
Stars explode when they are very old.
They run out of the fuel needed to resist their gravity. The star collapses, explodes, and debris is scattered in all directions. In many cases, gas will drift until it clusters with other gases, and gravity holds them together. Inside the newly formed nebula there are usually a multitude of stars being produced. If nebulae did not exist, we would have a very black empty sky at night.