The Hubble Space Telescope Revisits a Cosmic Nursery 5,000 Light-Years Away — Showing How Star Formation Has Changed Since 1997

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new image of the Trifid Nebula, a star-forming region approximately 5,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius, revealing changes in the cosmic nursery over nearly three decades of observation.

This updated view, released to mark Hubble’s 36th anniversary since its launch in 1990, shows a small portion of the nebula first imaged by the telescope in 1997. By comparing the new image with observations from 29 years ago, astronomers can see how gas and dust have shifted and how newborn stars continue to shape their surroundings, offering a rare glimpse of stellar evolution in real time.