Astronomers Trace Mysterious Signal to Destroyed Planet [Video]

Astronomers may have solved a enigma involving a mysterious X-ray signal from a dying star that’s been puzzling scientists since 1980.

New data from NASA‘s Chandra X-ray Observatory telescope and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton satellite has shown that a planet may have been destroyed by a white dwarf—one of the dimmest stars in the universe—at the center of a planetary nebula known as the Helix Nebula, or “WD 2226-210”.

A planetary nebula is a star in its late stage that has shed its outer layers, leaving behind a small dim star at its center known as a white dwarf, explains the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) explains.

“We might have finally found the cause of a mystery that’s lasted over 40 years,” Sandino Estrada-Dorado from the National Autonomous University of Mexico said in a statement.

“We think this X-ray signal could be from planetary debris pulled onto the white dwarf, as the death …