Astronomers Discover Mysterious Baby Star Dracula's Chivito

Photo byPhoto by Jake Weirick on Unsplash

Astronomers have discovered a peculiar object in the Milky Way, dubbed "Dracula's Chivito," resembling a sandwich due to its edge-on disk of dust and gas surrounding a baby star. Similar to the previously identified "Gomez's Hamburger," this object challenges traditional views of star formation, as it is not in a typical stellar nursery. Both objects represent a class of newborn stars that are poorly understood, floating in relatively empty space without clear origins.

The central star of Dracula's Chivito is determined to be a hot, Herbig Ae-type star with a disk radius of 1,650 astronomical units and a mass of around 0.2 Suns. Unlike Gomez's Hamburger, Dracula's Chivito exhibits two protruding filaments resembling fangs, indicating a dissipating envelope around the star and suggesting its youth.

The discovery offers an opportunity to study the vertical structure of star formation and suggests that isolated baby stars may be more common than previously thought. However, questions remain regarding their formation and placement in space.

Understanding these objects could provide insights into the star formation process and the distribution of newborn stars in the Milky Way. The researchers highlight the need for further discoveries of similar edge-on disks not associated with known star-forming regions to unravel the mysteries surrounding these fascinating cosmic phenomena.