The Orion Trapezium

[juan avellaneda]

I remember have read in an old russian astronomy book that the stars of the "trapezium" are separating radially , as if in the past a giant explosion of a big body have created them, ¿ is this true ? ¿what is this "pre-stellar" body ?

jp

[Nereid]

If you google on 'trapezium orion proper motion', you will find lots of interesting papers on the Orion cluster, the Trapezium stars, how they are seen to be moving, what their fates will be, etc.

In a nutshell, the Trapezium stars appear to be the massive central core of the newly forming 'Orion cluster', and appear to be gravitationally bound. Looks like that old russian book relied on observations which have subsequently been shown to be incorrect.


One interesting paper. (http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~lah/papers/orion_cluster.abstract.html)