MWC 480
MWC 480 is a single star, about 500 light-years away in the constellation of Auriga. It is located in the Taurus-Auriga Star-Forming Region. The name refers to the Mount Wilson Catalog of B and A stars with bright hydrogen lines in their spectra. With an apparent magnitude of 7.62, it is too faint to be seen with the naked eye.
Properties
MWC 480 is a young Herbig Ae/Be star, a class of young stars with spectral types of A or B, but are quite young and are still not main-sequence stars. MWC 480 is about 7 million years old. It is about twice the mass of the Sun, and is estimated to be about 1.67 solar radii.MWC 480 has X-ray emissions typical of a pre-main-sequence Herbig Ae/Be star but with an order of magnitude more photoelectric absorption. It has a gas-dust envelope and is surrounded by a protoplanetary disc that is about 11% the mass of the Sun. The disc is inclined about 37° towards the line of sight, on a position angle of about 148°. Astronomers using the ALMA have found that the protoplanetary disc surrounding MWC 480 contains large amounts of methyl cyanide, a complex carbon-based molecule. Hydrogen cyanide has also been detected in the disc. No signs of planet formation have yet been detected.