Newborn stars are emerging from the tips of finger-like features protruding from monstrous columns of cold gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula (also called M16). The columns -- dubbed "elephant trunks" -- protrude from a vast cloud of molecular hydrogen, like stalagmites rising above the floor of a cavern. Inside the gaseous towers, which are light-years long, the interstellar gas is dense enough to collapse under its own weight, forming young stars that continue to grow as they accumulate more and more mass from their surroundings. Image: Jeff Hester, Paul Scowen, NASA