Scientists name vast space oddity after Dracula and a sandwich

By Dean Murray

A vast space oddity named after Dracula has been imaged by scientists.

The chaotic structure, nicknamed “Dracula’s Chivito”, is the largest known planet-forming disk and has been captured in unprecedented detail.

Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, researchers have pictured the colossal disk around the young object IRAS 23077+6707, about 1,000 light-years away, for the first time in visible light.

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The disk spans nearly 400 billion miles – around 40 times the diameter of our solar system – and completely obscures the central star or possible stellar pair.

The system’s playful nickname reflects the heritage of team members from Transylvania and Uruguay, where the chivito sandwich is a national dish, and the edge-on disk resembles a cosmic hamburger in Hubble’s view.

Co-investigator Joshua Bennett Lovell, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), said: "We were stunned to see how asymmetric this disk is. 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."

Astronomers say the remarkable size and lopsided structure of “Dracula’s Chivito” could offer fresh clues to how planets form and evolve in especially massive and chaotic nurseries.