ALMA Hears Birth Cry of a Massive Baby Star

The team of astronomers led by Tomoya Hirota, an assistant professor at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and SOKENDAI (the Graduate University for Advanced Studies) observed a massive baby star called Orion KL Source I in the famous Orion Nebula, located 1,400 light-years away from the Earth. The Orion Nebula is the closest massive-star forming region to Earth. Thanks to its close vicinity and ALMA’s advanced capabilities, the team was able to reveal the nature of the outflow from Source I.

The massive protostar is located in the center and surrounded by a gas disk (red). A bipolar gas outflow is ejected from the protostar (blue).

Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Hirota et al.

“We have clearly imaged the rotation of the outflow,” said Hirota, the lead author of the research paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy. “In addition, the result gives us important insight into the launching mechanism of the outflow.”

The new ALMA observations beautifully illustrate the rotation of the outflow. The outflow rotates in the same direction as the gas disk surrounding the star. This strongly supports the idea that the outflow plays an important role in dissipating the rotational energy.

Furthermore, ALMA clearly shows that the outflow is launched not from the vicinity of the baby star itself, but rather from the outer edge of the disk. This morphology agrees well with the “magnetocentrifugal disk wind model.” In this model, gas in the rotating disk moves outward due to the centrifugal force and then moves upward along the magnetic field lines to form outflows. Although previous observations with ALMA have found supporting evidence around a low-mass protostar, there was little compelling evidence around massive protostars because most of the massive-star forming regions are rather distant and difficult to investigate in detail.

The color shows the motion of the gas; red shows gas moving away from us, whereas blue shows gas moving toward us. The disk is shown in white.

Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Hirota et al.

“In addition to high sensitivity and fidelity, high resolution submillimeter-wave observation is essential to our study, which ALMA made possible for the first time. Submillimeter waves are a unique diagnostic tool for the dense innermost region of the outflow, and at that exact place we detected the rotation,” explained Hirota. “ALMA’s resolution will become even higher in the future. We would like to observe other objects to improve our understanding of the launching mechanism of outflows and the formation scenario of massive stars with the assistance of theoretical research.”

ALMA also imaged rotation of a gas jet from a low-mass protostar. Please read the press release “Baby Star Spits a “Spinning Jet” As It Munches -Down on a “Space Hamburger”" from the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taiwan.

Contacts and sources:
Dr. Masaaki Hiramatsu
National Institutes of Natural Sciences

Citation:  Hirota et al. “Disk-Driven Rotating Bipolar Outflow in Orion Source I” in Nature Astronomy on June 12, 2017.