An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
English-French-Persian

1) A child who has lost both parents through death, or, less commonly, one parent.
2) A young animal that has been deserted by or has lost its mother (Dictionary.com). → orphaned protostar.

M.E., from L.L. orphanus "destitute, without parents," from Gk. orphanos "bereaved;" akin to L. orbus "bereaved," Skt. arbhah "weak, child," Armenian orb "orphan," O.Irish orbe "heir," O.C.S. rabu "slave," Ger. Erbe, O.E. ierfa "heir," O.H.G. arabeit, Ger. Arbeit "work," O.E. earfoδ "hardship, suffering, trouble."

Yatim "fatherless," from Ar.

A → protostellar object which has been dynamically ejected from a newborn → multiple star system, either into a tenuously bound orbit or into an escape, thus depriving it from gaining much additional mass. Recent observations have shown that → Class I protostellar sources have a population of distant companions at separations ~ 1000 to 5000 → astronomical unit (AU)s. Moreover, the companion fraction diminishes as the sources evolve. According to N-body simulations of unstable → triple systems embedded in dense cloud cores, many companions are ejected into unbound orbits and quickly escape, but others are ejected with insufficient momentum to climb out of the potential well of the cloud core and associated binary. These loosely bound companions reach distances of many thousands of AU before falling back and eventually being ejected into escapes as the cloud cores gradually disappear (B. Reipurth et al. 2010, arXiv:1010.3307).

→ orphan; → protostar.