Daily Telescope: A protostar with a stunning protoplanetary disc

Good morning. It’s March 26, and today’s photo comes from the Hubble Space Telescope. It showcases a very young multi-star system known as FS Tau.

This star system is only about 2.8 million years old. In terms of cosmic time, that is but a blink of the eye. It lies about 450 light-years away from Earth.

FS Tau A is the very bright object in the middle of the image. It is a T Tauri binary system, consisting of two young variable stars. FS Tau B is the bright object to the far right that is partially obscured by a dark, vertical lane of dust. It is a protostar, and it’s worth taking a moment to look a little bit closer at the dust separating the two halves of the star.

According to astronomers who captured this photo, FS Tau B “is surrounded by a protoplanetary disc, a pancake-shaped collection of dust and gas leftover from the formation of the star that will eventually coalesce into planets. The thick dust lane, seen nearly edge-on, separates what are thought to be the illuminated surfaces of the disc.”

That is pretty awesome.

Source: NASA, ESA, K. Stapelfeldt (NASA JPL), G. Kober

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