sxc
No this isn’t a painting.
It’s actually a photo taken by the Hubble Telescope in 1995. These formation of “rocks”, located in the Eagle Nebula, are the cause of interstellar gases in space. In 2007, scientists revisit the location using the Spitzer Telescope, and determined that the Pillars of Creation are 7,000 light years away. (below is a zoomed out photo of the Eagle Nebula in which you can also see the equally awesome “Spire”)
This picture also told NASA researchers that the Pillars of Creation were destroyed by the shock waves from a supernova 6,000 years ago. However due to the limited speed of light, Earth can currently only see the approach of the shock wave (a red mass of hot dust warmed by the supernova can be seen behind the ghostly green of the nebula). Their actual destruction will not be visible for another millennium.
BONUS - The black hole inside the Perseus Cluster, 250 million light years away, produces a B-flat 57 octaves below the level of human hearing.
consider yourself scienced!
