Hubble watches a suspected exoplanet disappear before its very eyes – Astronomy Magazine

"Clearly, Fomalhaut b was doing things a bona fide planet should not be doing," Gspr said.

The last straw for Fomalhaut b was when researchers looked at Hubble images from 2014, which revealed the object had vanished altogether. Though there could be reasons why an exoplanet fades, they certainly dont just disappear.

This led researchers to conclude that Fomalhaut b was nothing more than a planetary mirage namely, an energetic cloud of debris blasted from a collision between two large icy objects. Then, as the cloud dispersed, the faux-planet Fomalhaut b dissolved into nothingness. Based on the evolving shape and location of the debris, the researchers estimate the original colliding bodies were each likely a mix of ice and dust measuring about 125 miles (200 kilometers) across.

Unfortunately, Hubble seems to have been late for the main event, as the researchers think the crash happened right before the telescope began observing the system in 2004. But just detecting the results of such a violent cosmic event is exciting, they say. According to the researchers calculations, such a massive collision may only happen once every 200,000 years in a given system.

Astronomers hope to further study the Fomalhaut system with the upcoming the James Webb Space Telescope during its first year of operations. The future observations will hopefully answer questions about Fomalhauts asteroid belt, as well as about any legitimate planets actually orbiting the star.

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Hubble watches a suspected exoplanet disappear before its very eyes - Astronomy Magazine