New insight into shocks and star formation in Orion: First light with GriF

A new instrument, "GriF", has been used on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope to record spatially and velocity resolved images, in the H 2 v=1-0 S(1) line in the K-band, of a ...field in the core of the Orion Molecular Cloud, OMC1. Using the PUEO adaptive optics system combined with Fabry-Perot interferometry, diffraction limited spatial resolution of 0 “15 and velocity discrimination of ~1 kms -1 has been achieved. These data yield graphic images of shocks in OMC1, presenting a level of detail which has not previously been attained. Observed structures suggest that a significant fraction of the regions strongly emitting in H 2 do so through local, internal shocks, associated with star formation within the clumps of gas involved. Thus the core of OMC1 is revealed for the first time as a region which contains a number of developed protostars.