Chandra Release - June 13, 2016

Visual Description: TW Hya Association

Researchers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory found evidence that intense X-ray radiation produced by some of the young stars in the TW Hya association (TWA) has destroyed disks of dust and gas surrounding them.  The main panel of this graphic is an artist's illustration that depicts a young star that is thinning and destroying the remnants of its planet-forming disk.These disks are where planets form. The stars are only about 8 million years old, compared to the 4.5-billion-year age of the Sun. Astronomers want to learn more about systems this young because they are at a crucial age for the birth and early development of planets. This illustration - which is not to scale since the stars are actually miniscule in size when compared with their surrounding disks - is accompanied by an inset Chandra image (upper right) of a young binary star system that was included in a study of the TWA. The Chandra data appears as two purple dots diagonal from each other.