The Orion nebula has long attracted the attention of astronomers its strange. Its stars are so unusually high rate that it seems as if all the congestion we shall soon go on a separate disc. In addition, there is too little (in comparison with the average of the stellar population in the galaxy) major stars, and the share of small overly loud.

With a probability of 70% of this BH is adjacent to the usual massive star that can greatly simplify the detection of exotic object. (Illustration : NASA, Honeywell Max-Q Digital Group / Dana Berry.)

The Orion nebula is different from the same clusters of non-standard ratio of massive and ordinary stars.

Astronomers under the leadership of Paul Croupy from the University of Bonn (Germany) conducted a computer simulation of interest accumulations on the basis of the "right", but the non-observed proportions between massive and low-mass stars, and calculates the movement of heavenly bodies such accumulations, as it was likely at the time of its formation, about 1-2 million years ago. Soon turned out that the most severe radiation of the stars had literally to "squeeze out" the gas accumulations, carrying away his other objects. The process explained the rapid movement of the stars: their speed was constantly growing due to the interaction with this gas.

However, in the center of mass of all was not so ordinary. Although part of the massive stars in the gravitational interactions with the rest was thrown away, and the other, getting the acceleration in the opposite direction, went to the center, where, according to the model, these stars were bound to collide with other heavyweights, merging with them and creating quite a giant star. Over time this led to the fact that one of them at once contact has exceeded the limit Oppenheimer - Volkov's and turned into a black hole of stellar mass. Over time, she has sucked the gas remains from congestion and increased its mass of about 200 Sunny. So it became a black hole of the intermediate mass.

Simulation gave a picture of clusters, very close to the observed in practice: a deficit of massive stars, fast movement and the remaining... Alas, BH such a small mass in the centre close accumulations yet to detect does not work. Nevertheless, the authors believe that it is possible. As calculations have shown, that with 70 percent probability of such BH still (remember that the accumulation young enough?) remains part of the dual system, the second component of which is the usual massive star. Thus, either the black hole is actively absorbs its stellar wind (as you can tell from telescopes), or, if the second component is too far from the black hole to implement this scenario, its speed must exceed 10 km/S.

Confirmation of such unusual behavior of one of the stars of the Orion Nebula astronomers and will be engaged in the near future.

Report on the study published in the Astrophysical Journal; with its Preprint available here.

Based on the materials of the University of Queensland.