An unusual x-ray signal from the Helix Nebula, first detected in 19180, could stem from a star destroying a nearby planet.
Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart
Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart
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00:00Visit Chandra's Beautiful Universe
00:05Helix Nebula
00:07After tracking a puzzling x-ray signal from a dying star for decades,
00:15astronomers may have finally explained its source.
00:17The old star might have destroyed a nearby planet.
00:21Dating back to 1980, x-ray missions have picked up an unusual reading from the center of the Helix Nebula.
00:28Using today's most powerful x-ray missions,
00:30NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton,
00:34they now have a much clearer picture of this decades-long enigma.
00:39The Helix Nebula is a so-called planetary nebula,
00:42which is the late-game stage of a star that has ejected its outer layers of gas
00:46and left behind a dimmer and smaller ember of a star known as a white dwarf.
00:52In previous decades, the Einstein X-ray Observatory and ROSAT telescopes
00:57detected highly energetic x-rays coming from the white dwarf at the center of the Helix Nebula
01:02named WD-2226-210, located only 650 light-years from Earth.
01:10White dwarfs like WD-2226-210 do not typically give off strong x-rays.
01:15A new study featuring the data from Chandra and XMM-Newton
01:20may finally have settled the question of what is causing these x-rays from WD-2226-210.
01:28A team of astronomers thinks this x-ray signal could be from planetary debris pulled onto the white dwarf
01:33as the death knell from a planet that was destroyed by the white dwarf in the Helix Nebula.
01:38Previously, scientists determined that a Neptune-sized planet is in a very close orbit around the white dwarf,
01:46completing one revolution in less than three days.
01:49The researchers in this latest study conclude that there could have been a planet like Jupiter
01:54even closer to the star.
01:57The besieged planet could have initially been a considerable distance from the white dwarf,
02:02but then migrated inward by interacting with the gravity of other planets in the system.
02:06Once it approached close enough to the white dwarf,
02:10the gravity of the star would have partially or completely torn the planet apart.
02:14The mysterious signal astronomers have been seeing could be caused by the debris from the shattered planet
02:20falling onto the white dwarf's surface that is being heated to glow in x-rays.
02:24If this result is confirmed, it would be the first case of a planet seen to be destroyed
02:29by the central star in a planetary nebula.
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