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Nuclear path beaten in space endlessly for star system (5,8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

alpha centauri

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'star system' is the definition.
'alpha centauri' can be an answer for 'star' (I've seen this before). I'm not certain of the 'system' bit.

'nuclear path beaten in space endlessly' is the wordplay.
'beaten' is an anagram indicator (letters beaten up or destroyed).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'space endlessly' becomes 'ai' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'nuclear'+'path'='nuclearpath'
'nuclearpath' is an anagram of 'lphacentaur'.
'lphacentaur' placed within 'ai' is 'ALPHA CENTAURI'.

'for' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for alpha centauri that I've seen before include "Bright binary star" , "Bright southern star" , "Closest star to the Sun" , "Star nearest Earth" , "Sun's closest star system" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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