Brightest Orion Trapezium Star (IMAGE)

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Brightest Orion Trapezium Star

Caption

Left: Zooming into the center of the Orion star-forming region with the four bright Trapezium stars (Theta1 Orionis A-D). The dominant star is Theta1 Orionis C, which was imaged with unprecedented resolution with the VLT interferometer (lower right). Right: The orbit of the binary system (grey line) was derived using position measurements obtained over the past 12 years (yellow points). The size of the orbit of Jupiter around our sun is shown for comparison.

Credit

MPIfR (Stefan Kraus), combining the VLTI image of Theta1 Ori C with images from VLT/ISAAC (ESO) and HST (NASA, Chris O'Dell).

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