Caption

Alien planet and star cluster. Composite image combining a computer illustration of a view across the rocky surface of an asteroid towards a gas giant planet (centre-left), with a space observatory image showing X-ray emission from young solar-type stars in the background. These stars lie within the Wing of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The X-rays of these young stars trace how active their magnetic fields are, which provides a clue to their rotation rate and the motion of gas in their interiors. Imaged with X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple), visible data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, and blue), and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope (red).