More like Faux-malhaut b

Distant point of light may not have been a planet after all

Web edition : 11:17 am

In 2008, astronomers snapped what they claimed was the first actual picture of an exoplanet. The Hubble Space Telescope image showed a pinpoint of light orbiting a star called Fomalhaut approximately 25 light-years from Earth.

Now, a different team of scientists spying on the presumed planet, dubbed Fomalhaut b, with the Spitzer Space Telescope suggests that the bright dot in the original image isn?t a planet at all. Though the team isn?t sure what the dot is, the point of light doesn?t appear to radiate at the infrared wavelengths where exoplanets should, a team led by Markus Janson of Princeton University reports in a paper posted online January 24 at arXiv.org.

This isn?t the first time that Fomalhaut b has stumped astronomers. Ground-based infrared telescopes haven?t been able to see it, and it?s tracing an unexpected path around its star. Theories proposed to explain the imaged ?planet? range from a background star to light scattered by a dust cloud.

But these results don?t mean that Fomalhaut is a lonely star: It?s circled by a dusty debris disk that bears an elliptical shape resembling the handiwork of a giant planetary shepherd ? a planet that just hasn?t been found yet. ?The ?real? Fomalhaut b still hides in the system,? the scientists conclude.

Found in: Astronomy and Atom & Cosmos

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/337921/title/More_like_Faux-malhaut_b

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