2001A&A...378..539P

We explore the structures immediately surrounding the high-mass young stellar object S140 IRS3 within the L1204 molecular cloud. We have obtained a bispectrum speckle interferometric K-band image with a resolution of 150 mas and a seeing-limited molecular hydrogen line emission image of IRS3. Our speckle image resolves IRS3 into three point sources, a close binary with separation 0.63'' and a third component 1.3'' away. A rough assessment of the system stability suggests that the IRS3 triple system is unstable. Our speckle image also reveals extended diffuse emission of very complex morphology around IRS3. An extended diffuse feature north-east of IRS3 displays a remarkable S-shaped structure. This feature is the innermost part of an at least 15'' long extended structure, which is pointing towards a bow-shock like patch located 90'' away from IRS3. We find strong H₂ line emission associated with this feature, suggesting the presence of shocks, caused by the collision of outflowing material with the ambient medium. The S-shaped structure of this feature can be well reproduced by a model assuming a precessing outflow from IRS3a. Furthermore, we find several elongated features pointing away from IRS3 in a southern direction. Some of these features also exhibit strong H₂ line emission, demonstrating that IRS3 drives outflows in several directions.