NICMOS Peers Through Dust to Reveal Young Stellar Disks. A View of CoKu Tau/1

This image shows a newborn binary star system, CoKu Tau/1, lying at the center of four 'wings' of light extending as much as 75 billion miles (about 120 billion kilometres) from the pair. The 'wings' outline the edges of a region in the stars' dusty surroundings, which have been cleared by outflowing gas. A thin, dark lane extends to the left and to right of the binary, suggesting that a disk or ring of dusty material encircles the two young stars.