A giant dusty bipolar structure around the planetary nebula NGC 1514

The transition from spherically symmetric asymptotic giant branch mass loss to aspherical planetary nebulae is an intriguing problem of stellar astrophysics. On 12 mu m maps of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), we detected a huge (2.6 pc) dust emission region around the evolved planetary ncbula NGC 1514. On 100 and 60 mu m IRAS maps, we additionally found two giant (2.1 and 0.9 pc) bipolar dust emission structures centred on NGC 1514; we suspect that each of these regions is physically connected to the planetary nebula. The bipolar structures are slightly tilted with respect to each other, possibly due to precession. The total mass (dust + gas) of all structures is 2.2 +/- 1.4 M(circle dot). We argue that NGC 1514 and its dusty surroundings represent one of the very few known cases where the preserved history of all main mass-loss phases of a star of intermediate initial mass can be seen.