Abstract
We report the discovery of the oldest stellar substructure in the Orion star-forming region (OSFR), the Orion relic filament. The relic filament is physically associated with the OSFR, as demonstrated by Gaia DR2 photometry and astrometry, as well as by targeted radial velocity follow-up observations of a bright subsample of proper motion-selected candidate members.
Gaia DR2 parallaxes place the Orion relic filament in the more distant part of the OSFR, similar to 430 pc from the Sun. Given its age, velocity dispersion, spatial extent, and shape, it is not possible for the Orion relic filament to have formed as a single stellar cluster, even taking into account residual gas expulsion.
The relic filament is also too young to be a tidal stream, because Galactic tides act on much longer time-scales, of the order of 100 Myr. It therefore appears likely that the structure formed from a molecular cloud filament similar to Orion A in the OSFR and retained its morphology despite decoupling from its natal gas.
Hence, the Orion relic filament bears witness to the short-lived evolutionary phase between gas removal and dispersion owing to shears and tides, and provides crucial new insights into how stars are formed in molecular clouds.