IRC+10216 is an aging star between 1.5 and 4 times the mass of our Sun that has exhausted the nuclear fuel at its core and is now burning the remaining hydrogen and helium in thick shells surrounding a core enriched in carbon. By the time the star has reached this phase in its evolution (called the asymptotic giant branch, or AGB, phase), the stellar radius has increased by a factor of several hundred to a thousand - in the case of IRC+10216 reaching a value comparable to the radius of Jupiter's orbit (about 5 astronomical units) - while the luminosity has increased by a factor of between 100 and 3000. In this illustration, we see IRC+10216 at the peak of both its radius and luminosity. The relatively rapid rise in its luminosity - over a few hundred thousand years - heats the previously undisturbed collection of orbiting icy bodies triggering the outwardly moving wave of evaporation depicted here. Such a collection of orbiting icy bodies is analogous to our Solar System's Kuiper Belt.

Figure courtesy of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.