The Trapezium is most readily identifiable by the asterism of four relatively bright stars for which it is named. The four are often identified as A, B, C and D in order of increasing right ascension. The brightest of the four stars is C, or Theta1 Orionis C, with an apparent magnitude of 5.13. Both A and B have been identified as eclipsing binaries.
Infrared images of the Trapezium are better able to penetrate the surrounding clouds of dust, and have located many more stellar components. About half the stars within the cluster exhibit circumstellar disks that are dwindling, a likely precursor to planetary formation. In addition, brown dwarfs and low-mass runaway stars have been identified.
A 2012 paper suggests an intermediate-mass black hole with a mass more than 100 times that of the Sun may be present within the Trapezium, something that could explain the large velocity dispersion of the stars of the cluster.5
Main article: Theta Orionis
Galileo Galilei: Siderius Nuncius, Venice, 1610. English Translation published at Bard College, Hudson, New York, October 9, 2003 English Translation [1] Archived 2004-07-06 at the Wayback Machine Original Latin version [2] /wiki/Venice ↩
Tom Pope and Jim Mosher: Galilean telescope homepage" March 17, 2006 "The Trapezium Through the Galilean Telescope". Archived from the original on 2008-01-30. Retrieved 2008-01-30., "Some have expressed puzzlement that in his text Galileo does not mention the nebulosity (known in modern nomenclature as M42) enveloping these stars. ... Galileo believed, as he explains in Sidereus Nuncius, that what looks nebulous to the eye is resolved into stars by his telescope; what looks nebulous through his telescope could presumably also be resolved into stars by a still larger and more powerful telescope. Hence, a diffuse glow would be, more than anything, an indication of the limitations of his telescope and not particularly worthy of special note." https://web.archive.org/web/20080130003147/http://www.pacifier.com/~tpope/Trapezium_Page.htm ↩
Tom Pope and Jim Mosher: Page on Galileo's February 4, 1617 notebook drawing of the Trapezium region, May 2, 2006 "Perhaps significantly, Galileo makes no mention of having noticed the now well-known gas cloud, M42, surrounding the Trapezium stars."[3] Archived 2011-08-11 at the Wayback Machine http://www.pacifier.com/~tpope/Photo_Drawing_Comparison_Page.htm#TRAPEZIUM ↩
"Trapezium Cluster". 15 May 2015. Retrieved 2018-03-06. http://www.messier-objects.com/trapezium-cluster/ ↩
Šubr, L.; Kroupa, P.; Baumgardt, H. (2012-09-04). "Catch me if you can: is there a "runaway-mass" black hole in the Orion Nebula Cluster?". The Astrophysical Journal. 757 (1): 37. arXiv:1209.2114. Bibcode:2012ApJ...757...37S. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/757/1/37. S2CID 118549761. /wiki/ArXiv_(identifier) ↩