Hubble Reveals Extreme Chaos Inside 'Dracula's Sandwich'

NASA's Hubble sees a stunning planet-forming disk. It's a real doozy.

Astronomers have found a planet-forming disk that looks like a solar system on steroids. New images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have revealed an enormous, oddly shaped disk of gas and dust around a single massive star or pair of stars about 1,000 light-years away in space. This thing spans nearly 400 billion miles — 40 times the width of everything around the sun, including the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt of comets.The telescope has cap…

Behold ‘Dracula’s Chivito,’ the Largest Planet Nursery Astronomers Have Ever Seen

This enormous protoplanetary disk is confounding astronomers.

Hubble Reveals Extreme Chaos Inside 'Dracula's Sandwich'

As a young star develops, so too does a protoplanetary disk of dust and gas around it, ready to birth new planets. Scientists have just discovered more about IRAS 23077+6707, the largest protoplanetary disk ever observed by a telescope. First spotted last year, the system is about 1,000 light-years from Earth and has a diameter of nearly 644 billion kilometers (400 billion miles), more than 100 times the distance between the Sun and Pluto. IRAS …

Hubble Reveals The Largest Chaotic Birthplace of Planets Yet Discovered - Astrobiology

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have imaged the largest protoplanetary disk ever observed circling a young star. For the first time in visible light, Hubble has revealed the disk is unexpectedly chaotic and turbulent, with wisps of material stretching much farther above and belowthe disk than astronomers have seen in any similar system. Strangely, […] The post Hubble Reveals The Largest Chaotic Birthplace of Planets Yet Discovere…

NASA’s Hubble reveals the largest chaotic birthplace of planets

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have imaged the largest protoplanetary disk ever observed circling a young star. For the first time in visible light, Hubble has revealed the disk is unexpectedly chaotic and turbulent, with wisps of material stretching much farther above and below the disk than astronomers have seen in any similar system. Strangely, more extended filaments are only visible on one side of the disk. The findings, wh…