Shortly after starting to form some 100,000 years ago,
several protostars in the Orion Molecular Cloud 1 (OMC - 1), a dense and active star factory about 1,400 light - years from Earth just behind the Orion Nebula,
latched onto each other gravitationally and gradually drew closer together.
The paper got the attention of
several groups that had
latched onto a similar idea, including the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association, one of the original leaders in the Reagan - era standards movement.