***Work In Progress***
Discovered by Charles Messier on June 5, 1764. It is located about 5,200 light-years from Earth in the north-west part of the Sagittarius constellation in our own Milky Way galaxy.
M20 is part emission nebula and part reflection nebula. The emission portion is the reddish-pink portion, and the reflection portion is the blue portion.
"Emission nebulae are energised [sic] by the ultraviolet light of nearby stars and usually appear red in photographs. These nebulae are clouds of extremely hot hydrogen gas and usually regions where new stars are being formed. The light of the stars illuminates the surrounding clouds, ionizing photons in large portions of the clouds.
Reflection nebulae, which typically appear blue in images, consist mostly of clouds of interstellar dust. They are also usually star-forming regions, but unlike emission nebulae, which emit spectral line radiation from ionized hydrogen, reflection nebulae do not emit any light of their own, but simply reflect the light of nearby stars." (1)
(1)
https://www.messier-objects.com/messier-20-trifid-nebula/https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/messier-20-the-trifid-nebulahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifid_Nebula
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