<p class="title">For nearly a century, astronomers have puzzled over the curious variability of young stars residing in the Taurus-Auriga constellation some 450 light years from Earth. One star, in particular, has drawn astronomers’ attention.<br /><br />Now, physicists from MIT and elsewhere have observed the star, named RW Aur A, using Nasa’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. They’ve found evidence for what may have caused its most recent dimming event: a collision of two infant planetary bodies, which produced in its aftermath a dense cloud of gas and dust. As this planetary debris fell into the star, it generated a thick veil, temporarily obscuring the star’s light.</p>.<p class="title"><br /><br />“Computer simulations have long predicted that planets can fall into a young star, but we have never before observed that,” says Hans Moritz Guenther, a research scientist in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “If our interpretation of the data is correct, this would be the first time that we directly observe a young star devouring a planet or planets.”<br /><br />Scientists who study the early development of stars often look to the Taurus-Auriga Dark Clouds. Young stars form from the gravitational collapse of gas and dust within these clouds. Very young stars, unlike our comparatively mature sun, are still surrounded by a rotating disk of debris, including gas, dust, and clumps of material ranging in size from small dust grains to pebbles, and possibly to fledgeling planets.<br /><br />In January 2017, RW Aur A dimmed again, and the team used Nasa’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory to record 50 kiloseconds or almost 14 hours of X-ray data. An analysis revealed to researchers several surprising revelations: the star’s disk hosts a large amount of material; the star is much hotter than expected; and the disk contains much more iron than expected— not as much iron as is found in the Earth, but more than, say, a typical moon in our solar system.</p>
<p class="title">For nearly a century, astronomers have puzzled over the curious variability of young stars residing in the Taurus-Auriga constellation some 450 light years from Earth. One star, in particular, has drawn astronomers’ attention.<br /><br />Now, physicists from MIT and elsewhere have observed the star, named RW Aur A, using Nasa’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. They’ve found evidence for what may have caused its most recent dimming event: a collision of two infant planetary bodies, which produced in its aftermath a dense cloud of gas and dust. As this planetary debris fell into the star, it generated a thick veil, temporarily obscuring the star’s light.</p>.<p class="title"><br /><br />“Computer simulations have long predicted that planets can fall into a young star, but we have never before observed that,” says Hans Moritz Guenther, a research scientist in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “If our interpretation of the data is correct, this would be the first time that we directly observe a young star devouring a planet or planets.”<br /><br />Scientists who study the early development of stars often look to the Taurus-Auriga Dark Clouds. Young stars form from the gravitational collapse of gas and dust within these clouds. Very young stars, unlike our comparatively mature sun, are still surrounded by a rotating disk of debris, including gas, dust, and clumps of material ranging in size from small dust grains to pebbles, and possibly to fledgeling planets.<br /><br />In January 2017, RW Aur A dimmed again, and the team used Nasa’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory to record 50 kiloseconds or almost 14 hours of X-ray data. An analysis revealed to researchers several surprising revelations: the star’s disk hosts a large amount of material; the star is much hotter than expected; and the disk contains much more iron than expected— not as much iron as is found in the Earth, but more than, say, a typical moon in our solar system.</p>