Characteristics
The Eagle Nebula is part of a diffuse emission nebula, or H II region, which is catalogued as IC 4703. This region of active current star formation is about 6,500 light-years distant. The tower of gas that can be seen coming off the nebula is approximately 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometers high.
The brightest star in the nebula (HD 168076) has an apparent magnitude of +8.24, easily visible with good binoculars. It's actually a binary star formed of an O3.5V star plus an O7.5V companion.
The cluster associated with the nebula has approximately 460 stars, the brightest of spectral class O, a mass of roughly 80 solar masses, and a luminosity up to 1 million times that of the Sun. Its age has been estimated to be 1-2 million years
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