Astronomy Picture of the Day -- At the Heart of Orion

NASA ^ | January 02, 2015 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: Near the center of this sharp cosmic portrait, at the heart of the Orion Nebula, are four hot, massive stars known as the Trapezium. Tightly 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 the closest known black hole to planet Earth.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit and Copyright: László Francsics]

[SunkenCiv]

2015 APoD Calendar

The Big One

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[9thLife]

Might just be my favorite nebula...but there are so many.

[left that other site]

Beautiful!

Happy New Year, Sunky!

[IronJack]

The Trapezium stars must have been where Roy Batty saw those attack ships on fire.

[SunkenCiv]

LOL!

[SunkenCiv]

So many nebulas, so much time! ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, and HNY to you and yours, too!

[left that other site]

These kind of APODs are my favorite! ;-)

[VanShuyten]

Is this the galaxy on Orion’s Belt?

[SunkenCiv]

“Just these three stars. You heard wrong.”