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Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are luminous massive blue stars thought to be immediateprecursors to the supernova terminating their brief lives. The existence ofdust shells around such stars has been enigmatic since their discovery some 30years ago; the intense radiation field from the star should be inimical to dustsurvival. Although dust-creation models, including those involving interactingstellar winds from a companion star, have been put forward, high-resolutionobservations are required to understand this phenomena. Here we presentresolved images of the dust outflow around Wolf-Rayet WR 104, obtained withnovel imaging techniques, revealing detail on scales corresponding to about 40AU at the star. Our maps show that the dust forms a spatially confined streamfollowing precisely a linear (or Archimedian) spiral trajectory. Images takenat two separate epochs show a clear rotation with a period of 220 +/- 30 days.Taken together, these findings prove that a binary star is responsible for thecreation of the circumstellar dust, while the spiral plume makes WR 104 theprototype of a new class of circumstellar nebulae unique to interacting windsystems.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, Appearing in Nature (1999 April 08

A dusty pinwheel nebula around the massive star WR104