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The BN/KL high-mass star-forming region lies very near the famous Trapezium
Stars in the Orion Nebula (a). An infrared (IR) image in the light
of hydrogen molecules (b) shows the spectacular "explosive" outflow emanating
from this region. The BN/KL region lies at the origin of this outflow.
A false color image of this region taken by Drs. Shuping, Morris, and Bally
using the LWS IR camera mounted on the Keck I telescope (Mauna Kea, Hawai'i)
shows a wild array of sources deep within the dense star-forming
cloud.
The bright regions in this image are from grains heated to a few hundred
Kelvin (- 100 -- 200 C) by the high-mass protostars labeled "BN", "n",
and "I". (Unheated insterstellar grains have temperatures of less than
50 K [-223 C]). Notice the elongated nature of source "n", thought
to be an inclined circumstellar accretion disk. One AU (Astronomical
Unit) is the distance between the Earth and Sun. For comparison, the
diameter of our solar system is roughly 80 AU.
The Keck image was presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting
in Atlanta, Georgia on 7 January 2004.
IMAGE CREDIT: Subaru near-infrared false-color images (a & b)
-- Subaru Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan; Keck mid-infrared
false-color image (c) -- R. Y. Shuping, UCLA, W. M. Keck Observatory.
FOR RELEASE: 9:20 AM EST, 7 January 2003.
