Evaporating Peaks: Pillars in the Monkey Head Nebula

The Monkey Head Nebula (also known as NGC 2174) is a star-forming region in which bright, newborn stars near the center of the nebula illuminate the surrounding gas with energetic radiation. This radiation, along with strong stellar winds, erodes away the lower density gas. Pockets of higher density gas resist this erosion, and form pillars and peaks along the inner edge of the roughly circular cloud. This video showcases visible and infrared light views of a collection of pillars along one edge of t