titre : Zooming into the skin of the Orion hunter

The Orion Nebula is at the top of the sword of the Orion constellation. This famous nebula is one of the most popular celestial attractions for amateur astronomers. The obtained colorful images reflect the intense UV illumination of the interstellar gas by a generation of young massive stars nicknamed The Trapezium. The presence of massive stars is also the reason why this region is one of the most studied by professional astronomers. Located at 1350 light year from Earth, this is indeed the region of formation of massive stars closest to Earth. Astrophysicists thus observe this region in the prospect of revealing the secrets of formation of these monster stars that deliver about 200 000 times the solar luminosity !

Le bord du nuage moléculaire d’Oion illuminé par les étoiles de l’amas du Trapèze : En partant de la droite, la première image est obtenue avec le télescope de 30m seul, la deuxième avec ALMA uniquement et la troisième est issue de la combinaison des deux jeux de données. Il y a un nombre environ 100 fois plus élevé de pixels dans l’image ALMA comparée à l’image 30m. Par comparaison une télévision HD offre un nombre 4 fois plus grand de pixels qu’une télévision standard (copyright IRAM/ALMA/Pety).

Javier Goicoechea explains : "Up to now, we had an extremely static view of what happens to the molecular gas in this transition. This has changed drastically with ALMA. We obtained an image of exquisite sensibility with a precision of 0.1 arcsecond, i.e., roughly the angular size under which the solar system would be seen at the distance of Orion."

**La grande nébuleuse d’Orion observée avec le télescope VLT de l’ESO/VLT et les détails de la barre d’Orion révélés par la combinaison ALMA+IRAM-30m. (copyright ESO/ALMA/Goicoechea).**

However, as any interferometer, ALMA alone would have only been sensitive to the small scale structures at the edge of the Orion Bar. This would have given a biased view of this edge. To correct for this, the team used single-dish observations obtained with the IRAM-30m telescope and combined both data sets to get the right answer. Jerome Pety adds : "Basically, we took a picture of the skin of the hunter, while ALMA alone would have only been sensitive to the skin pores !"

Ces images présentent la surface du vaste nuage moléculaire situé derrière la grande nébuleuse d’Orion à 1400 années lumière de la Terre. L’image à gauche présente une vision générale de la région, obtenue avec l’instument HAWK-I installé sur le Very Large Telescope. La zone plus petite observée avec l’interféromètre Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) est identifiée par un rectangle blanc. Le paneau de droite présente l’image ALMA et l’impressionnante structure révélée pour la première fois. (copyright ESO)

Javier Goicoechea continues : "This combination reveals that the edge of the molecular cloud is composed of small filaments and globules more or less organized in periodic patterns at the edge of an extended molecular cloud. The explanation for such patterns is counter-intuitive. Indeed, in a static view, the intense UV radiation from the Trapezium stars should only dissociate molecules and ionize atoms. However, in a dynamic view, the UV field brings so much energy to the edge of the molecular cloud that it shocks it and it compresses its outside layers, to form the thin filaments and small globules."
Jerome Pety enthousiastically finishes : "This compressed layer could help to protect the rest of the cloud from the harsh UV radiation. Behind the compression zone, the cloud temperature decreases fast and the cloud becomes quiet enough to continue forming new generation of stars."

Reference
Javier R. Goicoechea, Jérôme Pety, Sara Cuadrado, José Cernicharo, Edwige Chapillon, Asunción Fuente, Maryvonne Gerin, Christine Joblin, Nuria Marcelino & Paolo Pilleri. Compression and ablation of the photo-irradiated molecular cloud the Orion Bar. Nature. Doi : 10.1038/nature18957

Scientific contact

Maryvonne Gerin
Observatoire de Paris - LERMA, CNRS

Dernière modification le 21 décembre 2021