skip to main content
LOTERRE

LOTERRE

Search from vocabulary

Content language

| español français
Search help

Concept information

Preferred term

Trapezium Cluster  

Definition(s)

  • Trapezium (Theta1 Orionis) is a star cluster at the heart of the Orion Nebula consisting of more than 1,000 young stars crowded into a space about four light-years in diameter (roughly the distance between the Sun and the next nearest star). A few of these stars are hot O and B stars. The majority, however, are later-type, cooler, less luminous, and less massive pre-main sequence stars of a solar mass or less. With an average stellar age of only one million years, the Trapezium is one of the youngest clusters known. Most of its member stars are hidden by dust or by the glare of the nebula but are visible at infrared wavelengths. The four brightest stars (A, B, C, and D), which form the vertices of a trapezium and give the cluster its name, can be seen easily with a small telescope. Two fainter stars of eleventh magnitude, E and F, show up in moderately sized amateur instruments under good seeing conditions. A further two, of 16th magnitude, G and H, are only visible in very large amateur scopes. (Encyclopedia of Science, by David Darling, https://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/T/Trapezium.html)

Broader concept(s)

Synonym(s)

  • Orion Trapezium Cluster

In other languages

URI

http://data.loterre.fr/ark:/67375/MDL-F5DNW86S-J

Download this concept:

RDF/XML TURTLE JSON-LD Last modified 4/24/23