A young multipolar planetary nebula in the making: IRAS 21282+5050
  We present high-angular-resolution {\it Hubble Space Telescope (HST)} optical
and near-infrared imaging of the compact planetary nebula (PN) IRAS 21282+5050.
Optical images of this object reveal several complex morphological structures
including three pairs of bipolar lobes and an elliptical shell lying close to
the plane of the sky. From near-infrared observations, we found a dust torus
oriented nearly perpendicular to the major axis of elliptical shell. The
results suggest that IRAS 21282+5050 is a multipolar PN, and these structures
developed early during the post asymptotic-giant-branch (AGB) evolution. From a
three-dimensional (3-D) model, we derived the physical dimensions of these
apparent structures. When the 3-D model is viewed from different orientations,
IRAS 21282+5050 shows similar apparent structures as other multipolar PNs.
Analysis of the spectral energy distribution and optical spectroscopic
observations of the nebula suggests the presence of a cool companion to the hot
central star responsible for the ionization of the nebula. Whether the binary
nature of the central star has any relations with the multipolar structure of
the nebula needs to be further investigated.
