The Masses of the Orion Proplyds from Submillimeter Dust Emission

We have imaged the 880 μm continuum emission from the “proplyds” in the center of the Trapezium Cluster in Orion using the Submillimeter Array with a beam size 1. 5 FWHM and an rms of 2.7 mJy. Five sources are detected with fluxes in the range 18 to 38 mJy, which includes dust emission from four proplyds and ionized gas from θ OriG. The total masses of the detected proplyds derived from their dust emission range from 1.3 to 2.4×10 M⊙ assuming a dust temperature of 20 K and mass opacity of 0.03 cm g. Eighteen other proplyds within the field of view are not detected individually, but the flux distribution toward their locations is slightly higher than the background and has an average value of 1.1 mJy which corresponds to a mass of 8×10 M⊙. The four detected proplyds have sufficient disk mass bound to their central stars to form planetary systems on the scale of our Solar System. Subject headings: ISM: individual(Trapezium Cluster, Orion Nebula) — stars: protoplanetary disks — stars: formation