HK Tau is the first example of a young binary system with an edge-on disk around one member of the pair. The thin, dark disk is illuminated by the light of its hidden central star. The absence of jets indicates that the star is not actively accreting material from this disk. The disk diameter is 215 AU. The brighter primary star appears at top of the image.

Image taken with the HST's WFPC2 camera.
Photo credit: Karl Stapelfeldt (JPL) and colleagues, and NASA
Taken from STSci Press Releases 9/2/99

Last Updated: 12 February 1999

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