PREVIEW

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BY MARK WORGAN

The Hubble Space Telescope has revisited the Trifid Nebula, a stunningly beautiful region of space it first captured in 1997, as part of celebrations marking its 36th anniversary.

The new image focuses on a small section of the nebula, a stellar nursery about 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.

Hubble was first launched on 24th April 1990, and since it has provided a window into regions of space that were previously unknowable to humans.

In addition to being its 36th birthday party piece, astronomers say the comparison with earlier observations reveals how the cosmos changes over relatively short, human timescales.
The scene, captured using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, shows a shimmering cloud of gas and dust where new stars are forming. In visible light, the colours resemble an underwater landscape, with fine particles appearing to drift like sediment through the depths.

Scientists say several massive stars outside the field of view have shaped this region for at least 300,000 years. Their intense ultraviolet radiation has created a vast bubble, compressing gas and dust and triggering further waves of star formation.

The updated image also benefits from a more advanced camera installed during the telescope’s fourth servicing mission, offering a wider field of view and improved sensitivity.

The latest observations highlight a distinctive formation within the nebula, described by astronomers as a “Cosmic Sea Lemon” due to its resemblance to a sea slug gliding through space.
Within this structure, jets of plasma from newly forming stars can be seen emerging and evolving. One such feature, part of a Herbig Haro 399, is produced by a young protostar embedded in the cloud. By tracking its motion over time, researchers can estimate the speed of these outflows and the energy being released.

Nearby, fainter structures suggest the presence of a counter-jet, while another young star appears at the tip of a darker region, possibly nearing the end of its formation. Evidence also points to surrounding material being eroded by intense ultraviolet radiation from nearby massive stars.

Elsewhere in the image, thin streaks and rippling lines indicate further activity from deeply embedded young stars, their jets carving through surrounding dust.

The clearest view lies towards the upper left of the image, where blue hues dominate. Scientists say this is where powerful ultraviolet light has stripped electrons from gas, causing it to glow while stellar winds carve out surrounding material.

Darker regions, particularly towards the right of the image, contain dense concentrations of dust that obscure newly forming stars. Some visible stars in these areas may lie in the foreground rather than within the nebula itself.

Astronomers say that over millions of years, the gas and dust within the nebula will gradually disperse, leaving behind only fully formed stars.
Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has made more than 1.7 million observations and contributed to tens of thousands of scientific papers.

In recent years, it has helped uncover evidence of early galaxy formation, observed faint and distant galaxies, and detected unexpected phenomena using artificial intelligence. It has also recorded collisions between asteroids in another star system and captured a comet breaking apart within our own Solar System.