Artist's Conception of Orion Source I (IMAGE)
Caption
This is an artist's conception of the "boiling disk" surrounding the massive young stellar object known as Orion Source I. A disk of hot, ionized gas surrounds the central star, blocking our view. A cool wind of gas is driven from the upper and lower surfaces of the disk (as indicated by the colored arrows) and is sculpted into an hourglass shape by tangled magnetic field lines (shown as thin blue lines). This outflow is lit up by emission from silicon monoxide molecules -- emission that has been imaged and tracked by radio astronomers month-to-month. The entire disk and wind are rotating, leading to observable Doppler shifts of the material entrained in the wind; redder colors represent material with a component of motion away from the observer (into the plane of the sky), while bluer colors represent material moving toward the observer (out of the plane of the sky).
Credit
Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF
Usage Restrictions
None
License
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