Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. This enhanced Hubble Space Telescope image shows in remarkable detail the inner portion of the disk of dust and gas surrounding the star AB Aurigae. Knots of material, visible here for the first time, may well represent an early stage of a process which could result in the formation of planets over the next few million years. Its swirling circumstellar disk is large, about 30 times the size of our solar system . Wide black stripes in the picture are caused by occulting bars used to block out the overwhelming starlight and the diagonal streaks are due to diffraction spikes .
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