The largest planetary construction site ever seen, spanning hundreds of billions of miles in size, may very well be cast in an enormous shadow that accentuates its bizarre appearance. In short, it looks like a cosmic butterfly — and, for years, it was ignored.The object, known as IRAS 23077+6707, was originally cataloged as a source of infrared emission by the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) in the 1980s. Then in 2016, while conducting a survey of active galaxies in the region of the constellation of Cepheus, astronomer Ciprian Berghea of the U.S. Naval Observatory serendipitously rediscovered it with the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS).Berghea didn’t know for sure what it was, but it appeared to have two parallel lobes with a dark lane between them — typical of an edge-on planet-forming disk. Bright parts in such an object represent dust-scattered light in the upper echelons of the disk, while the dark lane is the equivalent of our solar system’s ecliptic plane, where most of the material is concentrated. It is this dense section of material that blocks and absorbs the light of a system’s central star. Upper and lower planes of the disk disperse gradually rather than exhibit a sharp edge, while two filaments trace those flared portions, which are also flared. Because of all this, the arrangement looks uncannily like a butterfly — but, in a way, those bright regions split by a dark lane also gives the impression of a hamburger. So, as per his Romanian heritage growing up near Transylvania, Berghea nicknamed IRAS 23077+6707 Dra …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnThe largest planetary construction site ever seen, spanning hundreds of billions of miles in size, may very well be cast in an enormous shadow that accentuates its bizarre appearance. In short, it looks like a cosmic butterfly — and, for years, it was ignored.The object, known as IRAS 23077+6707, was originally cataloged as a source of infrared emission by the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) in the 1980s. Then in 2016, while conducting a survey of active galaxies in the region of the constellation of Cepheus, astronomer Ciprian Berghea of the U.S. Naval Observatory serendipitously rediscovered it with the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS).Berghea didn’t know for sure what it was, but it appeared to have two parallel lobes with a dark lane between them — typical of an edge-on planet-forming disk. Bright parts in such an object represent dust-scattered light in the upper echelons of the disk, while the dark lane is the equivalent of our solar system’s ecliptic plane, where most of the material is concentrated. It is this dense section of material that blocks and absorbs the light of a system’s central star. Upper and lower planes of the disk disperse gradually rather than exhibit a sharp edge, while two filaments trace those flared portions, which are also flared. Because of all this, the arrangement looks uncannily like a butterfly — but, in a way, those bright regions split by a dark lane also gives the impression of a hamburger. So, as per his Romanian heritage growing up near Transylvania, Berghea nicknamed IRAS 23077+6707 Dra …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
