APOD: 2022 August 5 - A Beautiful Trifid

Good Red Friday afternoon, Rallypoint, and welcome to the August 5th edition of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD): "A Beautiful Trifid." The Trifid Nebula (M20) lies about 4100 light years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. Charles Messier first documented its presence on June 5, 1764. Close-up images show a dense cloud of dust and gas, which is a stellar nursery full of embryonic stars. A 2005 survey of the Trifid Nebula by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope discovered 30 embryonic stars and 120 newborn stars not seen in visible light images.

The name "trifid" illustrates what we actually see when looking at M20. We see red emission nebulae (ionized hydrogen), blue reflection nebulae (starlight reflecting off of dust), and dark (dust lanes) nebulae, primarily responsible for giving the Trifid Nebula its bifurcated appearance. The most massive star that has formed in this region is 20 times the mass of our Sun.