I love it when astronomers come down to earth and create terms we can all understand to explain strange astronomical phenomena that very few of us understand. My new favorite- Elephant Trunks.
Massive stars are born in dense molecular clouds in the universe. As the nuclear furnace inside them begins to burn, they generate huge quantities of radiation which heats and ionizes the surrounding gases. The pressure and wind from the star forces these regions to expand.
This doesn't happen in a perfectly symmetrical manner, but instead, the expanding gases form clumps and bubbles. Some of the denser clumps may actually be the seeds for elongated structures astronomers now refer to as 'elephant trunks.' You've seen pictures of these elongated structures, like the famous Hubble Space Telescope image of the 'Pillars of Creation.'
Looking at this image it's easy to see the elephant trunk shapes. There is even a nebula called the Elephant Trunk Nebula.
Image credit: Gerhard Bachmayer Several papers have come out recently describing attempts to model this process using computer simulations. Search results from astro-ph at arXiv brings up some very interesting papers, if you're into stellar evolution...or circus animals.
The Eagle here refers to the Eagle Nebula. EGGs are Evaporating Gaseous Globules, and the authors want to know if the EGGs are sterile or fertile, in other words, will stars be born here? C'mon, this is fun stuff!
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