Full Trifid Nebula (Rubin Image with Hubble Close-up)

At left is a complete view of the Trifid Nebula (Messier 20 or M20) captured by the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. A white box in the lower-left portion of the pink region shows the area the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope targeted, and Hubble’s new image is featured at right.

Rubin’s field of view is approximately 56 light-years across, while Hubble’s is about four light-years across.

The colour assignments in the images vary based on the filters in the telescopes’ cameras. Rubin takes broadband images, which capture the full visible spectrum to show natural colours in red, green, and blue. For this image, Hubble captured narrowband images of specific chemical elements. Sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen were mapped to red, green, and blue, respectively, to make this composite image.

[Image description: A ground-based photo of the full Trifid Nebula is shown on the left half with an inset image from the Hubble Space Telescope at right. At left, an irregular mostly opaque circle takes up the majority of the view. The circle has a bright pink interior crossed with a few dark, jagged dust lanes. A significant region around that appears blue. The edges have shades of orange and brown, with the star-filled black background of space peeking through. Hubble’s close-up is outlined just below center to the left. The top left is bright blue. Brown and amber colours run from top right through the center in irregular, overlapping lines to the bottom-center. At bottom right, the view is almost black. Tiny, amber-coloured stars appear throughout the scene. Toward the left there is a prominent brown shape that looks like a head with two horns.]