Eli5: how do the pillars of creation just stay the same shape out in space for so long and how did it all accumulate in that area?
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Part of the reason why the pillars appear to change relatively slowly is because the material that constitutes them is incredibly diffuse. There’s not enough “stuff” in them to change with the rapidity that we associate with gaseous bodies like clouds that we’re familiar with on earth.
From our distant perspective, they appear to look like the dense, lumpy material in lava lamps, but that’s only because we’re looking through pillars that are a half light year in depth.
Up close, it’s a different story. In fact, if you were an astronaut in the middle of one of the pillars, you *wouldn’t see anything at all.* The actual density of the pillars is only 4,000 particles per cubic centimeter, which is less than the most sophisticated artificial vacuums in laboratories. Yet at a half light year in diameter, each pillar is humongous in size, with an astronomically gargantuan number of particles to look at from afar–and that’s why we see them as physical shapes.
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