Sunday, March 8, 2015

Trapezium Stars

The heart of the Orion Nebula! heart emoticon
In the centre, there are four hot, massive stars known as the Trapezium. 

Ultraviolet ionizing radiation from the Trapezium stars, mostly from the brightest star Theta-1 Orionis C.

We are guessing that it is 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 the closest known black hole to planet Earth.

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