The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured a breathtaking new image of IRAS 04302+2247, a planet-forming disk located about 525 light-years away in the Taurus star-forming region. This stellar nursery provides astronomers with an opportunity to study how tiny dust grains evolve and cluster within protoplanetary disks—the raw material for building new worlds.
Across our galaxy, young stars emerge within immense, cold gas clouds. As they grow, the surrounding gas and dust flatten into thin, swirling disks. These protoplanetary disks set the stage for planet formation, offering scientists clues about how our own solar system came together roughly 4.5 billion years ago.
A Protostar in Formation
IRAS 04302, often called the “Butterfly Star,” is a striking example of a protostar—a young star still gathering mass from its surroundings. Webb’s instruments reveal that its disk spans an astonishing 65 billion kilometers across, several times the diameter of our solar system. From Earth’s vantage point, the disk appears edge-on, creating a thin, dark band that blocks the star’s bright light. This dusty band provides fertile ground for baby planets to grow and accumulate mass.
Dust, Nebulas, and the Butterfly Shape
In this orientation, Webb exposes the vertical structure of the disk and how dust grains settle toward the midplane, forming the dense layer needed for planets to form. The central star is hidden behind a dark streak of gas and dust, allowing the telescope to capture two luminous reflection nebulas fanning out on either side. Their delicate, wing-like glow has earned the system its poetic nickname.
When observed face-on, such disks often display rings, gaps, and spirals—features that can hint at developing planets or other processes like dust trapping and gravitational instabilities. The edge-on view of IRAS 04302, however, reveals the disk’s thickness, which helps scientists measure how efficiently dust grains clump together.
Credit to : CNBCT
