这一结构被称为“Cosmic Sea Lemon”，呈现头状主体、暗色突起与喷流特征。左侧触角对应 Herbig–Haro 399，是一颗年轻原恒星在世纪尺度上反复排出等离子喷流的区域。时间序列位移测量可约束外流速度与注入能量；多道锯齿状橘红条纹也可能是其他埋藏于尘埃中的原恒星喷流。附近大质量恒星的强紫外线会电离近旁气体、雕刻空穴，并逐步侵蚀暗褐色条纹。最致密的核心或许仅能存续几百万年；相邻的暗柱已失去大部分气体与尘埃，仅保留最高密度部分。最终，在数百万年尺度上，尘埃与气体将被耗尽，恒星会成为主要成分。
在36年运行后，Hubble 的科学回报仍维持高位：已完成超过170万次观测，近29,000名天文学家共同使用其资料，发表超过23,000篇经审查论文，2025 年单年约1,100篇。近期成果涵盖极微弱星系、早期银河形成的遗迹、AI 辅助的宇宙异常搜寻、他星系内小行星碰撞首次发现，以及对彗星 3I/ATLAS 进行快速尺寸估算。自2022年起，与 James Webb Space Telescope 结合的观测扩展了发现机会，显示成熟中的观测站仍能透过紫外到近红外的多波段能力持续提供前沿成果。
On 20 April 2026, NASA/ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope revisited a Trifid Nebula (Messier 20, M20) field in Sagittarius first imaged in 1997 for its 36th anniversary. The region is about 5,000 light-years away (about 1.53 kpc). Comparing the new view with 1997 data reveals measurable changes on human timescales, while long-term shaping has occurred over much longer intervals. Massive stars outside the field have influenced the area for at least 300,000 years, driving a UV-powered wind bubble that compresses gas and dust and repeatedly triggers star formation. A fourth-servicing upgrade also increased field of view and sensitivity, enabling the recent comparison.
The structure is described as a “Cosmic Sea Lemon,” with a head-like core, dark protrusions, and jet features. The left horn contains Herbig–Haro 399: a plasma jet repeatedly emitted for centuries by a young protostar. Time-series motion measurements now constrain outflow speeds and injected energy, while additional jagged orange-red streaks likely trace other embedded protostellar jets. Strong ultraviolet radiation from nearby massive stars ionizes nearby gas, sculpts cavities, and helps erase dark filaments. Dense knots may survive only for a few million years; the observed pillar has already lost most gas and dust except its densest crest. Ultimately, over millions of years, dust and gas will fade and stellar remnants will dominate the scene.
After 36 years, Hubble’s scientific return remains high: over 1.7 million observations, nearly 29,000 astronomers, more than 23,000 peer-reviewed papers, and almost 1,100 papers in 2025. Recent outputs span extreme faint galaxies, relics of early galaxy formation, AI-assisted anomaly searches, a first detection of asteroid collisions in another planetary system, and rapid size estimates of comet 3I/ATLAS. Since 2022, Hubble plus James Webb Space Telescope programs have expanded discovery opportunities. This indicates that a mature observatory can continue delivering frontier results through multiwavelength coverage from ultraviolet through near-infrared and sustained operations.