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Originally published in Science Express on 29 November 2007
Science 18 January 2008:
Vol. 319. no. 5861, pp. 309 - 312
DOI: 10.1126/science.1149926
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Reports

Million-Degree Plasma Pervading the Extended Orion Nebula

Manuel Güdel,1,2,3,4* Kevin R. Briggs,1,5 Thierry Montmerle,4 Marc Audard,6,7 Luisa Rebull,8 Stephen L. Skinner9

Most stars form as members of large associations within dense, very cold (10 to 100 kelvin) molecular clouds. The nearby giant molecular cloud in Orion hosts several thousand stars of ages less than a few million years, many of which are located in or around the famous Orion Nebula, a prominent gas structure illuminated and ionized by a small group of massive stars (the Trapezium). We present x-ray observations obtained with the X-ray Multi-Mirror satellite XMM-Newton, revealing that a hot plasma with a temperature of 1.7 to 2.1 million kelvin pervades the southwest extension of the nebula. The plasma flows into the adjacent interstellar medium. This x-ray outflow phenomenon must be widespread throughout our Galaxy.

1 Paul Scherrer Institut, Würenlingen and Villigen, CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland.
2 Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany.
3 Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Post Office Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands.
4 Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Grenoble, Université Joseph Fourier–CNRS, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex, France.
5 Institute of Astronomy, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule ETH-Zentrum, CH-8092 Zürich, Switzerland.
6 ISDC, Chemin d'Ecogia 16, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland.
7 Geneva Observatory, University of Geneva, Ch. des Maillettes 51, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland.
8 Spitzer Science Center, California Institute of Technology, Mail Code 220-6, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
9 Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, UCB 389, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309–0389, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: guedel{at}astro.phys.ethz.ch

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