APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Trapezium: In the Heart of Orion
Explanation: What lies in the heart of Orion? Trapezium: four bright stars, that can be found near the center of this sharp cosmic portrait . Gathered within a region about 1.5 light-years in radius, these stars dominate the core of the dense Orion Nebula Star Cluster. Ultraviolet ionizing radiation from the Trapezium stars , mostly from the brightest star Theta-1 Orionis C powers the complex star forming region's entire visible glow. About three million years old, the Orion Nebula Cluster was even more compact in its younger years and a dynamical study indicates that runaway stellar collisions at an earlier age may have formed a black hole with more than 100 times the mass of the Sun . The presence of a black hole within the cluster could explain the observed high velocities of the Trapezium stars . The Orion Nebula's distance of some 1,500 light-years make it one of the closest candidate black holes to Earth.
| Date | August 13, 2025 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Image Credit: Data: Hubble Legacy Archive , Processing: Robert Gendler |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |




