Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                              2020 December 22

                           Trifid Pillars and Jets
      Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Space Telescope, HLA; Processing:
                                Advait Mehla

   Explanation: Dust pillars are like interstellar mountains. They survive
   because they are more dense than their surroundings, but they are being
   slowly eroded away by a hostile environment. Visible in the featured
   picture is the end of a huge gas and dust pillar in the Trifid Nebula
   (M20), punctuated by a smaller pillar pointing up and an unusual jet
   pointing to the left. Many of the dots are newly formed low-mass stars.
   A star near the small pillar's end is slowly being stripped of its
   accreting gas by radiation from a tremendously brighter star situated
   off the top of the image. The jet extends nearly a light-year and would
   not be visible without external illumination. As gas and dust evaporate
   from the pillars, the hidden stellar source of this jet will likely be
   uncovered, possibly over the next 20,000 years.

    Growing Gallery: Notable images of the Great Conjunction submitted to
                                    APOD
                       Tomorrow's picture: open space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

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