Protoplanetary disk around IRAS 23077+6707The young star, located about 1,000 light-years away, is unexpectedly chaotic and turbulent, with wisps of material extending much further above and below the disk than astronomers have seen in any similar system.
This Hubble image shows the protoplanetary disk around IRAS 23077+6707. Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/C. Monsch, CfA/J. DePasquale, STScI.
Protoplanetary disks are dust- and gas-rich circumstellar disks present around young stars and are expected to be major sites for planet formation.
The disk of IRAS 23077+6707 extends nearly 644 billion kilometers (400 billion miles)—about 40 times the diameter of our Solar System—to the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt of cometary bodies.
The disk hides a star within itself, which scientists believe could be either a hot massive star or a pair of stars.
And the huge disk is not only the largest known planet-forming disk; it also promises to be one of the most unusual.
“The level of detail we see is rarely seen in images of protoplanets, and the new Hubble images show that planetary nurseries may be much more active and chaotic than we expected,” said Dr. Christina Monsch, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
“We see this disk almost edge-on, and its thin upper layers and asymmetrical features are especially striking.
Both the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have discovered similar structures in other disks, but IRAS 23077+6707 provides us with an exceptional perspective—allowing us to track its substructures in visible light with an unprecedented level of detail.
This makes the system a unique new laboratory for studying planet formation and the environments in which it occurs.”
The disk, seen edge-on, resembles a hamburger: a dark central band surrounded by luminous upper and lower layers of dust and gas.
The impressive height of these objects was not the only thing that attracted the attention of scientists.
The new images showed that vertical filament-like structures appear on only one side of the disk, while the other side has a sharp edge and no visible filaments.
This distinctive, skewed structure suggests that the disk is shaped by dynamic processes, such as recent ingestion of dust and gas or interaction with the environment.
“We were stunned to see how asymmetrical this disk is,” said Dr. Joshua Bennett Lovell, also of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
“Hubble has given us a front-row seat to the chaotic processes that shape disks to create new planets—processes that we don’t yet fully understand but can now study in entirely new ways.”
All planetary systems are formed from disks of gas and dust surrounding young stars.
Over time, gas accumulates on the star, and planets emerge from the remaining material.
IRAS 23077+6707 may represent a larger version of our early Solar System, with a disk mass estimated to be 10 to 30 times that of Jupiter—enough material to form several gas giants.
This, and new discoveries, make this an exceptional case for studying the birth of planetary systems.
“Theoretically, IRAS 23077+6707 could contain an extensive planetary system,” Dr Monsch said.
“Although planet formation in such massive environments may differ, the underlying processes are likely similar.”
“We have more questions than answers right now, but these new images are a starting point for understanding how planets form over time and in different environments.”
conclusions will be published in Astrophysical Journal.
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Christina Monsch etc.. 2025. Hubble discovered complex multiscale structure in the edge-on protoplanetary disk IRAS 23077+6707. APJin print; arXiv: 2510.11819
