New observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) will be presented by astronomers during a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, June 22. A picture taken by Hubble has provided the most detailed visible-light image ever of a narrow, dusty ring around the nearby star <b>Fomalhaut</b>. It offers the strongest evidence yet, that an unruly and unseen planet could be gravitationally tugging on the ring. The findings will appear in the June 23 issue of Nature. (source) http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/jun/HQ_m05101_New_Hubble_Picture.txt Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! (background info on my site...) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Caltech Submillimeter results confirm the ring-like morphology, but also show that the geometric centre is displaced from the star by about 8 AU. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The displacement is interpreted in terms of elliptical orbital motion due to gravitational perturbation by an unseen planet, with an implied forced eccentricity of ~ 0.06... <a href="http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=58381&subForumID=150365">See!</a>
Here it is http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn7564 "Astronomers suspect the ring around Fomalhaut is the dusty trace of a belt of small comet-like bodies that surround the star, much like the Kuiper Belt that surrounds our solar system." Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! SIZE of a ..... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
ok, thanks. I could be a good way to study how our solar system might have evolved, but you probably already knew that.
That red picture is a real image or an artist's rendition? It looks like the Eye of Sauron. Lidless. Wreathed in Flame.
Two months if you're lucky. But don't look forward to moving there just yet until all the dust settles. That may take another 4 to 5 billion years. Okeydoke Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Hum, As a side note, the nearby orange-red dwarf star TW Piscis Austrini located about 24.9 light-years away, has been determined to be a distant physical companion of Fomalhaut. It too is about 100 – 300 million years old and shares the same common proper motion. And it happens to be a flare star(<i>variable star</i>), with a strong stella wind... Through proper motion studies, another K5 dwarf (LTT 8273) is believed to be an optical companion. These two stars , including Fomalhaut, Vega, and Castor may be the remaining members of a low-density star cluster that has gradually dispersed over a few hundred million year period.
