Astrophysics Department

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

by
Hubble's view of the vast star-forming region known as the Trifid Nebula. The upper left is bright blue. Brown and amber draw irregularly overlapping lines from the top right through the center and flow down to the bottom center. The bottom right corner is almost completely dark. Small amber stars appear throughout the scene. On the left side, a brown shape stands out that looks like a head with two horns. The left corner points to the left and is wavy. The right corner is triangular and points upwards. The brown dust flows down the back and continues toward the upper right. A pronounced line appears below the center of the body, approximately the same length as the left horn, changing from orange to red. On the left side of the head there is a separate small translucent column. You can see some slightly larger blue foreground stars with four diffraction spikes.

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 … Read more