Abstract
We report the discovery of a collimated bipolar outflow emerging from a visible disk around the proto-planetary nebula IRAS 17106-3046. The radius of the disk, estimated to be 2500 AU at a distance of 4 kpc, is too large for it to be a Keplerian disk created by accretion. The radial intensity profile of the disk suggests that it is consistent with an expanding torus. In contrast to the open-end, butterfly-like lobes commonly seen in bipolar planetary nebulae, the lobes of IRAS 17106-3046 have pointed ends, suggesting a recently formed jet breaking out of the lobes. IRAS 17106-3046 therefore could represent the earliest stage of the bipolar-shaping process during the transition from an asymptotic giant branch star to a planetary nebula.
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Footnotes
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This work was based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Institute, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555.