article_snippet.sent: The image, together with data collected by Nasa, suggests these structures only have three million years left before these structures fade away - a relatively short time in cosmic terms.
article_snippet.sent: By measuring the Pillars of Creation's rate of evaporation, Muse has given astronomers a time frame for when the different dusty pillars will be no more.
article_snippet.sent: Muse shed about 70 times the mass of the sun every million years or so.
article_snippet.sent: Based on the Muse present mass of about 200 times that of the sun, the Pillars of Creation have an expected lifetime of perhaps three million more years.
article_snippet.sent: Some scientists have put forward the theory that the Pillars of Creation were already killed by a neighboring supernova some 6,000 years ago.
article_snippet.sent: If this is the case, astronomers on Earth won’t know for another 1,000 years, when the light from the descruction reaches our planet. '
article_snippet.sent: ESO's Muse instrument on the Very Large Telescope has now helped illustrate the ongoing evaporation of The Pillars of Creation in unprecedented detail, revealing their orientation.
highlights_snippet.sent: the different dusty pillars shed about 70 times the mass of the sun every million years .
  
highlights_snippet.sent: They are expected to have a lifetime of perhaps three million more years - which is relatively short in cosmic terms .