• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Disk Called “Dracula’s Chivito” Has The Largest Collection Of Planet-Making Materials Ever Found

May 15, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

The astronomical object Dracula’s Chivito has more than a cool name; it contains more material for forming planets than any other disk we’ve ever seen. In fact, it’s got about twice as many ingredients as the nearest counterpart we have found.

Advertisement

Officially known as IRAS 23077+6707, this disk makes the one from which the Solar System formed look puny. It’s about 3,300 astronomical units (the distance of the Earth to the Sun) wide, stretching to beyond fifty times the orbit of Neptune. When planets eventually form out of it, anything Jupiter-sized may struggle to get noticed by anyone studying the system. What living among such giants will mean for Earth-like planets remains to be seen. 

Advertisement

Earth’s position relative to IRAS 23077+6707 means we see it almost entirely side-on, which presumably contributed to it not being noticed until recently, although astronomers are still trying to work out how they overlooked it. Instead of seeing a broad plane, it looks a little like a cross between a side-view of a reverse-colored Oreo cookie and a butterfly. Its most similar counterpart was named Gómez’s Hamburger after its founder. Noticing shadows that look like fangs at certain wavelengths, Dr Ciprian Berghea called it Dracula’s Chivito earlier this year, after a type of Uruguayan sandwich.

It’s just as well it has a name more memorable than IRAS 23077+6707, as this object is likely to feature heavily in the future of astronomy. Measuring the composition of a protoplanetary disk at this angle has unique challenges, but a team predominantly based at the Harvard Smithsonian Center For Astrophysics notes it also has advantages. The star at the center of the disk is obscured from our perspective, making it possible to see aspects that would otherwise be lost in the glare.

By combining scattered-light imaging and interferometric observations at millimeter wavelengths, the team notes that Dracula’s Chivito covers the largest known angular size of any protoplanetary disk. That’s extraordinary, because at an estimated distance of 1,000 light years, it’s a lot further away than many of the objects they compared it to. “What is perhaps most remarkable is that this source has until now gone unreported in the scientific literature,” the authors note.

The red and blue shift of its gas confirms we're looking at a rotating protoplanetary disk.

The red and blue shift of its gas confirms we’re looking at a rotating protoplanetary disk.

Image credit: SAO/ASIAA/SMA/K. Monsch et al; Optical: Pan-STARRS

“What we found was incredible – evidence that this was the largest planet-forming disk ever discovered. It is extremely rich in dust and gas, which we know are the building blocks of planets.” First author Dr Kristina Monsch said in a statement. 

Advertisement

The star at the disk’s center is large, but not exceptionally so, the team estimating it at 2-4 times the mass of the Sun.

A cleaned up image makes the comparison to sandwiches clearer.

A cleaned-up image makes the comparison to sandwiches clearer.

Image Credit: Berghea et al

Unusually, Dracula’s Chvito’s gas and dust emissions cover the same area of the sky, instead of the gas extending around twice as far, as is typical of young disks like this. Emissions are exceptionally bright at the wavelengths associated with carbon monoxide, suggesting high concentrations, a trait shared with Gómez’s Hamburger.

Monsch noted the disk may have already spawned its first planets, but the instruments used so far are not suited to detecting them. Either Hubble or the JWST, on the other hand, might be able to spot something, even at this distance. “We just have to look for them,” she told The Associated Press. 

This research is published open access in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The team that named Dracula’s Chivito has a paper accepted to the same journal currently available on ArXiv.org with overlapping findings, although it proposes the central star is 1.5-2.0 solar masses.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Bolivian president calls for global debt relief for poor countries
  2. Five Seasons Ventures pulls in €180M fund to tackle human health and climate via FoodTech
  3. Humanity’s Journey To A Metal-Rich Asteroid Launches Today. Here’s How To Watch
  4. Ancient DNA Reveals People Caught Leprosy From Adorable Woodland Critters In Medieval England

Source Link: Disk Called “Dracula’s Chivito” Has The Largest Collection Of Planet-Making Materials Ever Found

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Orcas Filmed Kissing (With Tongues) In The Wild For The First Time
  • How Easy Is It For A Country To Change Its Time Zone?
  • Earth’s First Commercial Space Station Set To Launch In 2026
  • Black Hole Moon: Rogue Planets With Weird Signatures Could Be A Sign Of Advanced Alien Life
  • World’s Largest Ephemeral Lake Set To Turn Iconic Peachy Pink After Extreme Flooding
  • Stunning New JWST Observations Give Further Evidence That Dark Matter Is A Real Substance
  • How Big Is This Spider? Study Explains Why You Might Overestimate Their Size
  • Orcas Sometimes Give Humans Presents Of Food And We Don’t Know Why
  • New Approach For Interstellar Navigation Was Tested On A Spacecraft 9 Billion Kilometers Away
  • For Only The Second Recorded Time, Two Novae Are Visible With The Naked Eye At Once
  • Long-Lost Ancient Egyptian City Ruled By Cobra Goddess Discovered In Nile Delta
  • Much Maligned Norwegian Lemming Is One Of The Newest Mammal Species On Earth
  • Where Are The Real Geographical Centers Of All The Continents?
  • New Species Of South African Rain Frog Discovered, And It’s Absolutely Fuming About It
  • Love Cheese But Hate Nightmares? Bad News, It Looks Like The Two Really Are Related
  • Project Hail Mary Trailer First Look: What Would Happen If The Sun Got Darker?
  • Newly Discovered Cell Structure Might Hold Key To Understanding Devastating Genetic Disorders
  • What Is Kakeya’s Needle Problem, And Why Do We Want To Solve It?
  • “I Wasn’t Prepared For The Sheer Number Of Them”: Cave Of Mummified Never-Before-Seen Eyeless Invertebrates Amazes Scientists
  • Asteroid Day At 10: How The World Is More Prepared Than Ever To Face Celestial Threats
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version