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 probably looked like 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, gas builds up in the star and the swirling dust forms planets. A protoplanetary disk observed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is the largest ever observed in visible light.
The massive disk is unusually turbulent, with long swirls of dust filaments extending above and below the disk for distances far greater than seen in any other young star system.
The results were published in The Astrophysics Journal.
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Spotting “Dracula’s Chivito”
Researchers gave the protoplanetary disk an unusual name to match its unexpected size and structure. The disk’s official name is IRAS 23077+6707, but has been nicknamed “Dracula’s Chivito”, in homage to the Romanian and Uruguayan nationalities of two of the researchers who identified it (a Chivito sandwich is the national dish of Uruguay). Fittingly, the disc resembles a beef sandwich, with luminous “buns” of gas and dust surrounding a “patty” of dark sky.
Hubble spotted the new disk about 1,000 light years from Earth. The young system is massive and spans nearly 400 billion kilometers, more than 100 times the average distance between Earth and Pluto. The telescope was unable to observe the young star inside the disk, but astronomers believe it is likely either a massive lone star or a pair of stars.
“The level of detail we observe is rare in imaging protoplanetary disks, and these new Hubble images show that planet nurseries can be much more active and chaotic than expected,” Kristina Monsch, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics and co-author of the study, said in a press release. “We see this disk almost edge-on, and its wispy upper layers and asymmetrical features are particularly striking.
Hubble and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have seen similar structures on other disks, but IRAS 23077+6707 gives us an exceptional perspective, allowing us to trace its substructures in visible light with an unprecedented level of detail. This makes the system a unique new laboratory for studying planet formation and the environments in which it occurs,” added Monsch.
“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 disc. The researchers noted that the filaments only appear on one side of the disk, while a sharp, dark border demarcates the other side of the filament. Such an unbalanced structure indicates that changing processes are shaping the disk, such as strong environmental interactions or an influx of dust or gas particles.
“We were amazed at how asymmetrical this disk is,” said Joshua Bennett Lovell, Monsch’s co-author and also an astronomer at CfA, in a press release. “Hubble has given us a front-row seat to observe the chaotic processes that shape disks as they build new planets – processes that we don’t yet fully understand but can now study in a whole new way.”
Researchers hope 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 large planetary system,” Monsch said. “Although 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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