Butterfly Star shows off its planet-forming disc

Today’s Image of the Day from the European Space Agency features IRAS 04302, a young star wrapped in a massive planet-forming disc about 525 light-years away in the Taurus star-forming region.  The young star sits deep in a dark cloud, hidden behind a veil of dusty gas. The material around it is raw fuel for planet formation.  The birth of planets is not something we can watch unfold in real time. It takes millions of years for the ingredients of a solar system...