NASA’s Hubble shines on young stars in the Trifid Nebula – NASA Science

This shimmering region of star formation is a close-up of the Trifid Nebula, about 5,000 light-years from Earth, captured in intricate detail by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The colors in Hubble’s visible-light image, which marks the 36th anniversary of the mission’s launch on April 24, are reminiscent of an underwater scene filled with fine-grained sediment bouncing around in the deep ocean.

Several giant stars outside this field of view have shaped this region for at least 300,000 years. (See them in a broader perspective.) Its powerful winds continue to blow giant bubbles, only a fraction of which are shown here, pushing and compressing the cloud’s gas and dust, sparking a new wave of star formation.

This is not the first time Hubble has observed this scene. The telescope observed Trifid in 1997 and now, 29 years later, has used almost its full operational life to show changes in the nebula on human timescales. Why look at the same place again? In addition to being able to observe changes over time, Hubble is also equipped with an improved camera with a wider field of view and higher sensitivity, which was installed during Service Mission 4.

Hubble’s view of the Trifid Nebula (also known as Messier 20 or M20) focuses on the “head” and undulating “body” of a rust-colored cloud of gas and dust, resembling a sea lemon or nudibranch, as if gliding through space.

The left “horn” of the Cosmic Sea Lemon is part of Herbig Halo 399, a jet of plasma periodically ejected over centuries by a young protostar embedded in the Sea Lemon’s head. Changes like the one seen in the video below allow researchers to measure outflow rates and determine how much energy the protostar is injecting into these regions. These measurements provide insight into how newly formed stars interact with their surroundings.

Just to the bottom right is evidence of a counterjet. A jagged orange and red line “runs” down the back of Sea Lemon’s neck, revealing a natural V in the brown dust.

A darker, triangular “corner” to the right of the “head” hosts another young star at its tip. If you zoom in, you’ll see a faint red dot with a small jet. The green arc above it may be evidence that the circumstellar disk is being eroded by intense ultraviolet radiation from a nearby massive star. The more transparent region around this protostar suggests that its formation may be nearly complete.

Just to the left of the Cosmic Sea Lemon is a small, faint pillar that resembles a tardigrade. Much of the gas and dust in this column has been blown away, but the densest material at the top remains.

Stripes and sharp lines provide more clues about the activities of other young stars. Look for wavy diagonal lines near the center that start in bright orange and end in fiery red to find an example. In the image comparison, it appears to be moving, which means it could be a jet fired from another actively forming star buried deep within the dust.

In Hubble’s visible-light observations, the clearest view is in the upper left, which is bluer. Intense ultraviolet light from a massive star outside the field of view stripped electrons from nearby gas, creating the glow, and winds dislodged surrounding dust to form a bubble.

At the top of the Cosmic Sea Lemon’s head, bright yellow gas flows upward. This is an example of dark brown dust being irradiated with ultraviolet light, causing the gas and dust to peel off and decompose.

Many ridges and slopes of dark brown material will remain for millions of years as the star’s ultraviolet light slowly erodes the gas. The densest regions are home to protostars and are hidden from visible light.

The right side is almost completely dark. This is where the dust is the thickest. The stars that appear here may not be part of this star-forming region. They can be close to us, in the foreground.

Next, scan the scene for a bright orange orb. These stars are fully formed and the space around them is empty. Over millions of years, the nebula’s gas and dust disappear, leaving only the stars.

Hubble’s various instruments and the wide range of light it collects, from ultraviolet to visible to near-infrared, have helped researchers make groundbreaking discoveries for decades, providing new data every day that inevitably leads to further results.

The telescope has made more than 1.7 million observations to date. Approximately 29,000 astronomers have published peer-reviewed scientific papers using Hubble data collected over the telescope’s 36-year lifespan, resulting in more than 23,000 publications, and approximately 1,100 in 2025 alone. Hubble observations are publicly available at the Barbara A. Mikulski Space Telescope Archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and its mission description, history, and gallery of popular images are available on NASA’s Hubble website.

Since 2022, researchers have regularly combined Hubble’s observations with observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to further their discovery opportunities. Astronomers will soon begin studying the huge near-infrared datasets from NASA’s new Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope survey and compare them with existing and new Hubble observations to try to figure out what’s working. For context, Roman’s cameras can cover: whole The Trifid Nebula shows a complete bubble with a single finger pointing, and could potentially reveal interesting objects for follow-up studies.

What other flagship can we expect? The mission concept, known as the “Habitable World Observatory,” will feature a much larger mirror than Hubble, allowing for higher-resolution images and, like Hubble, capturing ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light. This next-generation space telescope will advance the science of astrophysics as a whole and will be the first telescope specifically designed to identify habitable Earth-like planets next to brighter stars like the Sun and search for signs of life.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been in operation for more than 30 years and continues to make groundbreaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is an international cooperation project between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages telescope and mission operations. Denver-based Lockheed Martin Space also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.