New Close-up Shows Binary Stars in Orion's Heart

[mickw]

stronomers have caught their sharpest look of a double star system deep in the heart of the Orion nebula.

The result is an ultra-clear glimpse of Theta 1 Orionis C, a mismatched pair of stars locked in orbit around one another about 1,350 light-years from Earth.

Once thought to be a single star, Theta 1 Orionis C is the brightest and most dominant stellar system inside the dense star-forming region of Orion's beautiful Trapezium Cluster. Infrared views of the system ultimately showed its dual nature, which shines through with renewed clarity in the new image.

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090402-orion-binary-star.html

[MarkS]

The article says the image of the binary has a resolution of 2 milli-arcsecs.  That is stunning!  The resolution of my C11 is approx 500 milli-arcsecs.

[Ian]

try wiping the vaseline off mate...

[MarkS]

 

[mickw]

Amateur stargazers may spot the Orion Nebula as a fuzzy patch in the constellation Orion, but they cannot see an interstellar birthing ground that spans the region of sky from above Orion's head to below his feet.

Now astronomers have completed the most wide-ranging census of baby stars in and around the Orion nebula, and found a stellar nursery that's both chaotic and crowded. The work represents the first complete study of young stars, their gaseous clouds of dust and supersonic jets of hydrogen molecules shooting out from the poles of each star.

Jets arise as young stars are born from a rotating cloud of gas and dust, but usually die out once a star has fully ignited and stopped consuming the surrounding material. In this case, the jets became signals that pinpointed the location of baby stars hidden within the stellar birthing grounds

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090420-orion-nursery.html