来源： Space.com
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.
Nebula sparkles in new Hubble snapshot | Space photo of the day for April 23, 2026 Satellite snaps amazing 36th birthday pic of Hubble Space Telescope (photo) Hubble revisits the Crab Nebula after 25 years | Space photo of the day for March 24, 2026 The spike pointing straight up is a pillar of denser gas and dust that has not yet been eroded by the barrage of ultraviolet light and powerful particle winds from nearby newborn massive stars that are just beyond the edges of this image. At the tip of the pillar, we can see a star that has formed. Although it is still embedded in the nebula and not clearly visible, we can see what looks a little like the tip of a fingernail around it. This, it seems, is a circumstellar disk that one day will form planets.
However, the black that you see is not space — it has barely any stars. Instead it is a supremely dense patch of dusty gas that may be forming stars from within, but from without still appears impenetrable.
The name of the Trifid, which is over 4,000 light-years away, refers to an object that has three lobes. The nebula was given this name by the nineteenth century British astronomer John Herschel, who saw three lobes divided by dust lanes through his telescope. In actuality, the nebula has four lobes — Herschel’s telescope was unable to resolve the fourth dust lane.