The existence of water in extrasolar planetary systems is of great interest as it constrains the potential for habitable planets and life. Here, we report the identification of a circumstellar disk that resulted from the destruction of a water-rich a
nd rocky, extrasolar minor planet. The parent body formed and evolved around a star somewhat more massive than the Sun, and the debris now closely orbits the white dwarf remnant of the star. The stellar atmosphere is polluted with metals accreted from the disk, including oxygen in excess of that expected for oxide minerals, indicating the parent body was originally composed of 26% water by mass. This finding demonstrates that water-bearing planetesimals exist around A- and F-type stars that end their lives as white dwarfs.
We present time-resolved photometry of a cataclysmic variable discovered in the Isaac Newton Telescope Photometric Halpha Survey of the northern galactic plane, IPHAS J062746.41+014811.3 and classify the system as the fourth deeply eclipsing intermed
iate polar known with an orbital period of Porb=8.16 h, and spin period of Pspin=2210 s. The system shows mild variations of its brightness, that appear to be accompanied by a change in the amplitude of the spin modulation at optical wavelengths, and a change in the morphology of the eclipse profile. The inferred magnetic moment of the white dwarf is mu_wd = 6-7 x 10^33 Gcm^3, and in this case IPHAS J0627 will either evolve into a short-period EX Hya-like intermediate polar with a large PspinPorb ratio, or, perhaps more likely, into a synchronised polar. Swift observations show that the system is an ultraviolet and X-ray source, with a hard X-ray spectrum that is consistent with those seen in other intermediate polars. The ultraviolet light curve shows orbital modulation and an eclipse, while the low signal-to-noise ratio X-ray light curve does not show a significant modulation on the spin period. The measured X-ray flux is about an order of magnitude lower than would be expected from scaling by the optical fluxes of well-known X-ray selected intermediate polars.
