The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the world's largest telescope located in the Andes Mountains of Chile, has captured stunning close-up images of the Trifid Nebula, often referred to as the 'cotton candy' nebula due to its vibrant pink and blue hues.

This remarkable image was produced from over 678 exposures taken over a seven-hour period in May 2025, utilizing the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Camera, which boasts a resolution of 3,200 megapixels and is mounted on the 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope.

The Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, is a dynamic region approximately 5,000 light-years away from Earth, where new stars are forming and intense radiation shapes the surrounding gas and dust into complex structures.

Located in the constellation Sagittarius, the Trifid Nebula is near the Lagoon Nebula, which is about 4,000 light-years distant.

The observatory's long-term mission is set to begin later in 2025, aiming to conduct nightly sky scans for a decade to study cosmic phenomena, including dark energy and dark matter.

This ambitious project intends to create a comprehensive survey of the Southern Hemisphere's night sky, generating more data in one year than all prior optical astronomy combined, with plans to image each part of the sky approximately 800 times.

Brian Stone, acting director of the National Science Foundation, emphasized that the observatory is expected to gather more data about the universe than all previous optical telescopes combined.

In its first week of operation, the observatory has already discovered over 2,100 new asteroids and is anticipated to uncover millions more, including supernovas and potentially hazardous near-Earth objects.

The images released highlight the nebula's vibrant colors, with pink representing an emission nebula, blue indicating a reflection nebula, and dark regions symbolizing dark nebulas, creating a striking visual depiction.