Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); RIKEN, Zhang et al.

ALMA image of the IRAS-07299 star-forming region and the massive binary system at its center. The background image shows dense, dusty streams of gas (shown in green) that appear to be flowing toward the center of the system. Gas that is moving toward us -- as traced by the methanol molecule -- is shown in blue; motions away from us in red. The inset image shows a zoom-in view of the massive forming binary, with the brighter, primary protostar moving toward us shown in blue and the fainter, secondary protostar moving away from us shown in red. The blue and red dotted lines show an example of orbits of the primary and secondary spiraling around their center of mass (marked by the cross).

Provider: National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Image Source: /image/nrao/NRAO_Gallery_figure1_2

Curator: NRAO/AUI/NSF, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)