Hubble Discovers Dracula’s Chivito, the Largest-Known Chaotic Planet Nursery
In the early days of our Solar System, the area of space we call home likely resembled a flattened disk of gas and dust, rotating around a younger version of our sun. These protoplanetary disks are present in the first stages of all planetary systems. Over time, the gas builds into the star, and the swirling dust forms into planets. A protoplanetary disk observed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is the largest ever seen in visible light.
The massive disk is unusually turbulent, with long wisps of dust filaments reaching above and below the disk for far greater distances than seen in any other young star system.
The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal.
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Spotting “Dracula’s Chivito”
Researchers have given the protoplanetary disk an unusual name to match its unexpected size and structure. The disk’s formal name is IRAS 23077+6707, but has been dubbed “Dracula’s Chivito,” in homage to the Romanian and Uruguayan nationalities of two of the research team that identified it (a Chivito sandwich is Uruguay’s national dish). Fittingly, the disk does resemble a beef sandwich, with glowing “buns” of gas and dust surrounding a “patty” of dark sky.
Hubble spotted the new disk roughly 1,000 light-years from Earth. The young system is massive, spanning nearly 400 billion miles, more than 100 times the average distance from Earth to Pluto. The telescope couldn’t observe the young star inside the disk, but astronomers think it is likely to be either a massive lone star or a pair of stars.
“The level of detail we’re seeing is rare in protoplanetary disk imaging, and these new Hubble images show that planet nurseries can be much more active and chaotic than we expected,” said Kristina Monsch, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics and a study co-author, in a press release. “We’re seeing this disk nearly edge-on, and its wispy upper layers and asymmetric features are especially striking.
Both Hubble and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have glimpsed similar structures in other disks, but IRAS 23077+6707 provides us with an exceptional perspective — allowing us to trace its substructures in visible light at an unprecedented level of detail. This makes the system a unique, new laboratory for studying planet formation and the environments where it happens,” Monsch added.
“A Front Row Seat” To The Birth Of A New Star System
The Chivito’s towering filaments aren’t the only unusual thing about the disk. Researchers noted that the filaments only appear on one side of the disk, whereas a dark, sharp border marks out the filament’s other side. Such an unbalanced structure indicates that changing processes are shaping the disk, such as strong environmental interactions or the influx of dust or gas particles.
“We were stunned to see how asymmetric this disk is,” said Joshua Bennett Lovell, Monsch’s co-author and also an astronomer at the CfA, in a press release. “Hubble has given us a front row seat to the chaotic processes that are shaping disks as they build new planets — processes that we don’t yet fully understand but can now study in a whole new way.”
The researchers hope that the “Chivito” will serve as an exemplary case study of how planets form. The size of the accretion disks suggests that the system could eventually produce several massive gas giants.
“In theory, IRAS 23077+6707 could host a vast planetary system,” said Monsch. “While planet formation may differ in such massive environments, the underlying processes are likely similar. Right now, we have more questions than answers, but these new images are a starting point for understanding how planets form over time and in different environments.”
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