Near the center
of this sharp cosmic portrait, at the heart of the Orion Nebula, are four hot, massive stars known as the Trapezium. Gathered within a region about 1.5 light-years in
radius, they dominate the core of the dense Orion Nebula Star Cluster. Ultraviolet ionizing radiation from the Trapezium stars, mostly from the brightest star Theta-1 Orionis C powers the complex star forming region’s entire
visible glow. About three million years old, the Orion Nebula Cluster was even
more compact in its younger years and a dynamical study indicates that runaway stellar
collisions at an
earlier age may have formed a black hole with more than 100 times the mass of the Sun.
The presence of a black hole within the cluster could explain the observed
high velocities of the Trapezium stars. The Orion Nebula’s distance of some 1,500
light-years would make it one of the closest known black
holes to planet Earth.
Image & info via APOD
Image
Credit & Copyright: Fred Zimmer, Telescope Live
Source: Trapezium:
At the Heart of Orion – Scents of Science (myfusimotors.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment