NASA scientists searching deep space images noticed something oddly familiar floating inside a dark cloud.<\/p>\n
A glowing hamburger.<\/strong> At least that’s what it looked like from Earth.<\/p>\n A thick dark center cut across a bright orange shape suspended in space.<\/p>\n The object stretched across a region far larger than our solar system<\/strong>.<\/p>\n At first glance, the image almost looked artificial. It wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n The strange structure sat inside one of the most violent stellar nurseries<\/strong> astronomers have studied recently. That discovery pushed researchers to examine the region more closely.<\/p>\n What they found surrounding the object looked even stranger than the so-called \u201ccosmic hamburger\u201d itself.<\/p>\n NASA’s<\/span><\/span> esteemed Hubble Space Telescope is behind the ‘hamburger’ discovery.<\/p>\n A turbulent star-forming region inside the Milky Way<\/strong> caught astronomers’ attention.<\/p>\n That region is thick with dense gas, dust, and newborn stars. But one object immediately stood out from the rest of the matter.<\/p>\n A huge dark disk structure with glowing material around it stretched an incredible 40 times wider<\/strong> than our solar system.<\/p>\n Astronomers soon had a nickname: the \u201ccosmic hamburger.”<\/p>\n Thick dust curtained all visible light, which is why the center was so dark<\/strong>.<\/p>\n But brighter material above and below reflected surrounding radiant starlight outward. This detail turned out to be significant.<\/p>\n Researchers realized they were looking at a massive protoplanetary disk<\/strong>. <\/p>\n These phenomenon form around young stars when planets are being born.<\/p>\n Most known examples appear much smaller and calmer. This one looked chaotic.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jets of material blasted outward from the region while nearby stars flooded the area with radiation.<\/p>\n Planet formation usually sounds peaceful<\/a> in illustrations.<\/p>\n However, in this region, young stars sat hustled together inside turbulent clouds of gas and dust. Radiation and stellar winds<\/strong> constantly battered nearby material.<\/p>\n Researchers described the environment as unusually violent for planet formation.<\/p>\n That totally changed the investigation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Astronomers began studying how disks survive under such hectic conditions.<\/p>\n Some structures inside the region already showed signs of erosion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Powerful ultraviolet radiation slowly stripped gas away from exposed disks nearby.<\/p>\n Yet the \u201ccosmic hamburger\u201d remained enormous<\/strong>. This was another surprise for researchers.<\/p>\n The object appeared massive enough to resist complete destruction despite the surrounding mayhem.<\/p>\n Jets streaming away from the system<\/a> revealed another clue.<\/p>\n Material flowed forth from the young star being nursed inside the disk. This suggested active growth was ongoing<\/strong> deep within the structure.<\/p>\n The surrounding cloud also contained several young stellar objects in the formation process.<\/p>\n NASA Science<\/a> realized they were observing planetary nursery pandemonium in real time<\/strong>.<\/p>\n NASA Science<\/a> now believes the abnormal object is a giant protoplanetary disk surrounding a fresh star.<\/p>\n Astronomers believe planets may eventually form<\/strong> inside the dense material orbiting the hidden star.<\/p>\n The dark middle section consists of thick dust blocking visible light from passing through.<\/a><\/p>\n Brighter upper and lower regions reflect surrounding starlight instead<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Researchers nicknamed it the \u201ccosmic hamburger\u201d because the layered structure resembles a sandwich floating through space.<\/p>\n Stars and planetary systems are actively forming there right now<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Radiation from nearby stars constantly disrupts surrounding gas clouds and disks.<\/p>\n Even so, the massive disk continues to survive<\/strong> inside the turbulence. That became one of the most important discoveries.<\/p>\n Astronomers rarely observe planet-forming structures this large in such violent environments.<\/p>\n We got a glimpse into how planetary systems may survive difficult beginnings<\/strong>. Including systems very different from our own.<\/p>\n Even inside one of the galaxy\u2019s harshest stellar nurseries, giant planet-forming disks can still endure<\/a> for millennia.<\/p>\n Long enough for worlds to begin taking shape<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Billions of years ago, our own calm planet might have started with same level of planetary pandemonium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NASA scientists searching deep space images noticed something oddly familiar floating inside a dark cloud. A glowing hamburger. At least that’s what it looked like from Earth. A thick dark center cut across a bright orange shape suspended in space. The object stretched across a region far larger than our solar system. At first glance, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":21943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"cosmic hamburger,Hubble","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"The iconic Hubble Space Telescope has spotted an enormous \"cosmic hamburger\" inside a even larger celestial nursery in the deepest region of space.","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How NASA found “takeout” hidden inside a stellar nursery <\/h2>\n
A galactic combat zone for newborn worlds<\/h2>\n
The \u201ccosmic hamburger\u201d explained: What a space sandwich tells us about the origins of Earth<\/h2>\n
But this nursery looks unusually unstable<\/h3>\n