Gomez's Hamburger
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Gomez's Hamburger is a protoplanetary nebula, or a star that is in a state of evolution immediately before the true planetary nebula stage. Its official designation is IRAS 18059-3211.
It was discovered in 1985 on sky photographs obtained by Arturo Gomez, an astronomer at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The photos suggested that there was a dark band across the object, but its exact structure was difficult to determine because of the atmospheric turbulence that hampers all images taken from the ground. The star itself has a surface temperature of approximately 10,000 °C (18,000 °F).
The "hamburger buns" are light reflecting off dust, and the "patty" is the dark band of dust in the middle.
