Chandra Release - July 18, 2018

Visual Description: RW Aur A

The graphic features an artist's illustration in the main panel with an inset at lower left showing an X-ray plot of a young star named RW Aur A. The illustration depicts the destruction of a young planet or planets, which scientists may have witnessed for the first time using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. In the illustration there is a large yellow star surrounded by rocks, debris and dust, filling up the image frame. The dominant colors in the image are yellow, orange, brown and black for the illustration. A plot of Chandra data from the 2013 and 2017 in the inset, colored white and cyan, has a sharp peak on the right side of the 2017 spectrum. That is a signature of a large amount of iron. The Chandra data suggest that the most recent dimming event from RW Aur A was caused by the collision of two "planetesimals" (that is, infant planetary bodies still in the process of formation), including at least one object large enough to be a planet.