An orbital release model for the Orion BN/KL fingers

TL;DR

This paper proposes a simple orbital release model for the Orion fingers, suggesting they originate from protoplanets or low-mass protostars ejected after a supernova explosion of a high-mass star, explaining their observed trajectories.

Contribution

It introduces a novel orbital release model that explains the morphology and kinematics of the Orion fingers as ejected objects from a co-planar orbital system.

Findings

Reconstructed the orbital properties from finger positions.

Identified a compact disk with an outer radius of ~2.4 AU.

Demonstrated the model reproduces observed finger trajectories.

Abstract

We present a simple model in which the bullets that produce the "Orion fingers" (ejected by the BN/KL object) are interpreted as protoplanets or low mass protostars in orbit around a high mass star that has a supernova explosion. As the remnant of the SN explosion has only a small fraction of the mass of the pre-supernova star, the orbiting objects then move away in free trajectories, preserving their orbital velocity at the time of release. We show that a system of objects arranged in approximately co-planar orbits results in trajectories with morphological and kinematical characteristics resembling the Orion fingers. We show that, under the assumption of constant velocity motions, the positions of the observed heads of the fingers can be used to reconstruct the properties of the orbital structure from which they originated, resulting in a compact disk with an outer radius of $\sim 2.4$~AU.