Astronomers stunned by chaotic, one-sided protoplanetary disk

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have imaged the largest protoplanetary disk ever observed around a young star, revealing unprecedented turbulence and asymmetry. For the first time in visible light, Hubble shows wisps of material stretching far above and below the disk, with extended filaments appearing only on one side, suggesting dynamic processes such as recent infall of dust and gas or interactions with the surrounding environment.

Located roughly 1,000 light-years from Earth, the star system IRAS 23077+6707—nicknamed “Dracula’s Chivito”—spans nearly 400 billion miles, about 40 times the diameter of our solar system. The massive disk obscures the young star, which may be a single hot star or a binary system. Its enormous scale and unusual structure make it both the largest and one of the most peculiar planet-forming disks ever observed.

“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 lead author Kristina Monsch of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. “Both Hubble and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have glimpsed similar structures, but IRAS 23077+6707 provides an exceptional perspective—allowing us to trace substructures in visible light at an unprecedented level of detail.”

Co-investigator Joshua Bennett Lovell added, “We were stunned to see how asymmetric this disk is. Hubble has given us a front row seat to the chaotic processes shaping disks as they build new planets—processes we don’t yet fully understand but can now study in a whole new way.”

The disk’s mass, estimated at 10 to 30 times that of Jupiter, could support the formation of multiple gas giants, offering a scaled-up view of early solar system formation.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA. 

By Vafa Guliyeva