Dynamics of a Massive Binary at Birth
  Almost all massive stars have bound stellar companions, existing in binaries
or higher-order multiples. While binarity is theorized to be an essential
feature of how massive stars form, essentially all information about such
properties is derived from observations of already formed stars, whose orbital
properties may have evolved since birth. Little is known about binarity during
formation stages. Here we report high angular resolution observations of 1.3 mm
continuum and H30alpha recombination line emission, which reveal a massive
protobinary with apparent separation of 180 au at the center of the massive
star-forming region IRAS07299-1651. From the line-of-sight velocity difference
of 9.5 km/s of the two protostars, the binary is estimated to have a minimum
total mass of 18 solar masses, consistent with several other metrics, and
maximum period of 570 years, assuming a circular orbit. The H30alpha line from
the primary protostar shows kinematics consistent with rotation along a ring of
radius of 12 au. The observations indicate that disk fragmentation at several
hundred au may have formed the binary, and much smaller disks are feeding the
individual protostars.
