Hubble Directly Observes a Planet Orbiting Another Star

Science@NASA ^ | 11.13.2008 | Dr. Tony Phillips

[jmcenanly]

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star. Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis, or the "Southern Fish."
Fomalhaut has been a candidate for planet hunting ever since an excess of dust (a telltale sign of planet formation) was discovered around the star in the early 1980s by NASA's Infrared Astronomy Satellite, IRAS.

In 2004, the coronagraph in the High Resolution Camera on Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys produced the first-ever resolved visible-light image of the region around Fomalhaut. (Note: A coronagraph is a device that can block the bright light of a central star to reveal faint objects around it.) It clearly showed a ring of protoplanetary debris approximately 21.5 billion miles across and having a sharp inner edge.

[jmcenanly]

When 'all the world's ajangle and ajar' it is good to 'meditate on interstellar spaces', before getting back to work. The rest of the poem is here http://www.bartleby.com/104/39.html

[El Sordo]

I wonder what it would look like if you could orbit it today.

[OneWingedShark]

>I wonder what it would look like if you could orbit it today.

A spherical bowl of oatmeal.

[sten]

now there you go, twisting the noodle of liberals...

[Incorrigible]

Let’s go!

[TRY ONE]

Wonder if we can borrow money from ‘em? Japan & China has run out over here!

[Dallas59]

Planet Quest

[printhead]

Circling Uranus? Couldn’t help myself.

[HighlyOpinionated]

When 'all the world's ajangle and ajar' it is good to 'meditate on interstellar spaces'
And smoke a mild seegar.

Canopus is the title of the poem.

Is Bert Leston Taylor (author) 1866-
still alive?

WHEN quacks with pills political would dope us,
When politics absorbs the livelong day,
I like to think about that star Canopus,
So far, so far away.

[jmcenanly]

Bert Leston Taylor (1866-1921)
I made the connection contrasting events around distant stars with the rantings and ravings of politicians. I can’t find any information on just how long a year is on Fomalhaut b, but considering how little of the orbit it covered during two Earth years, it must take the better part of a millenium.

[Ramius]

Three times the size of Jupiter? Wow... That’s a lot of real estate.

Gonna need some seriously beefy legs to walk around.

[SunkenCiv]

Exoplanets finally come into view [ WOW! ]
BBC News | Thursday, November 13, 2008 | unattributed
Posted on 11/13/2008 4:57:30 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2131742/posts

[SunkenCiv]

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