The nature of the mysterious object in the constellation Ophiuchus is revealed

Astronomers at Queen's University in Kingston (Canada) have found out the nature of the mysterious radiation source VLA 1623 West, which turned out to be a protostellar disk. The results of the study are published in the preprint arXiv.org .

Protostellar disks are accretion disks around newborn stars that continuously deliver gas to protostars from the environment. VLA 1623 is one of the youngest protostellar systems located in the Rho Ophiuchus cloud complex, approximately 453 light—years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus. It consists of approximately four separate entities: VLA 1623Aa and VLA 1623Ab, associated with another companion VLA 1623B, as well as VLA 1623 West. The nature of VLA 1623 West has so far been unclear.

New models predict that VLA 1623W is an optically thick and expanding protostellar disk. Further analysis showed that the object is a young, strongly inclined disk in which large dust particles have not yet had time to settle in the central plane. Astronomers who made observations using the ALMA radio telescope also recorded separate radiation sources in the disk at wavelengths of 0.87 and 1.3 millimeters. It is assumed that these sources are associated with flares in areas where millimeter dust particles accumulate, and these flares are limited to the outer regions of the disk.

According to the authors of the article, further observations of VLA 1623W at millimeter waves are needed to confirm that the disk is flashing. If the arguments are confirmed, VLA 1623W will become a natural laboratory for studying dust deposition, as well as the properties of dust particles in protoplanetary disks.