At the Heart of Orion
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.