Summary

Description	The Hubble Space Telescope has trained its eyes on the Trifid Nebula, a dazzling star nursery 9,000 light-years from Earth. With its three huge intersecting dark lanes of interstellar dust, the Trifid Nebula is easily recognizable in the night sky. In the nebula's center is a group of young, massive 'O-type' stars -- the hottest and bluest type of star known to astronomers. The stars are releasing a flood of ultraviolet radiation that has blown away all the nearby gas and dust. Because there is no more star-forming material in that region, star formation is no longer happening in that particular area. But nearby, there are signs of new stars being born. One is surrounded a protoplanetary disk, which is believed to be an early formation of a planetary system. The spectacular images were taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 during the summers of 2001 and 2002. Thanks to this new look at the Trifid Nebula, astronomers are learning much more about how gas, dust, and stars of
Date	2004-06-14
Source	images.nasa.gov

Licensing

Public Domain (US Government Work)