Hubble Telescope celebrates 36th anniversary with gorgeous new image of famous Trifid Nebula

NASA celebrates Hubble's 36th anniversary with a new image of the Trifid Nebula, a star-forming region it first captured in 1997. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)) The Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating its 36th anniversary in space this week with a glimpse into the heart of a major star-forming region, presented in prismatic color. The Trifid Nebula (also known as Messier 20) is one of the most famous objects in the night sky, attracting amateur astronomers to its location in the constellation of Sagittarius the Archer, set against myriad stars of the Milky Way. Hubble 's new view of the Trifid is somewhat different from what skywatchers can see from Earth: the space telescope's 2.4-meter (8-foot) mirror is able to see much closer and in far more detail than any telescope on the ground is capable of achieving. Hubble's anniversary image presents what is just a small section of the Trifid, at the end of one of the four large dust lanes that extend from the central region of the nebula. Towering columns and sweeping walls of gas and dust dominate the scene. The center point is perhaps what looks like a gigantic mountain with two 'spikes' protruding from its peak, like the antennae on an insect. Yet despite their appearances, these spikes are two completely different phenomena. …