Gomez's Hamburger: A great name for a star

Thanks to a tweet by Ars Technica's John Timmer, I was introduced this morning to Gomez's Hamburger—a delightfully named astronomical feature about 900 lightyears away from Earth.

The name is funny. But what makes Gomez's Hamburger worth posting about here is that it gives you a glimpse of a process you've probably only read about before. Scientists think that planets form out of clouds of gas and dust circling a star. Over time, bits of dust clump together into larger objects, which in turn collide and smush into even larger objects. Eventually, instead of a star sitting in a dust cloud like Pigpen from Peanuts, you've got a classy, mature star orbited by a series of planets.

Gomez's Hamburger is most likely a young star sitting in a dust cloud. The dust is actually the meat in this sandwich. The "buns" are actually light reflecting off of the dust.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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MORE: astronomy • Funny • origins • planets • Science

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Tyler Roy-Hart

Nice. My 8 year old son and I spent an hour with the new scale-zoom masterpiece and one of the questions he left me with to google today was “ok what is Gomez’ Hamburger?”
- Their feldspars
  
  ”What is Gomez’ Hamburger?”
  
  An excellent name for a band.
SamSam

I just discovered this yesterday as well, I assume it’s because we’ve all just seen the Powers of 3 video that’s been making the rounds (again?).
http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch

So if the star is in the middle of that image, presumably not visible because it is outshone by its dust cloud, and the dust is orbiting the star, wouldn’t that make the star a kind of treat in the middle of a misshapen spheroidal dumpling?

I propose we rename it Gomezbaum’s Kneidl.
http://www.legrandbazart.com sigismund

Personally speaking, I would have named it “Lana Del Rey”.
artao

Where exactly IS this? Can I see it with either my 6″ Newtonian reflector or my 3.5″ refractor?
awjt

When we identify an accreted planet, please name it Pickle. And should a gassy Saturn-like planet also appear, please name it Onion.
flickerKuu

More proof that the recording industry does not care about artists. Alive? Low price CD. Dead? Let’s make more money off you!
- SamSam
  
  Yeah, Gomez’s Hamburger were great before they were exploited by indu$try….
  
  Download Gomez’s Hamburger on Pirate Bay!!1 Only 7.2 Hellabytes!
Jelly Bean Raider

GREAT article.. thanks for passing along!