NASA's Hubble Reveals Rogue Planetary Orbit For Fomalhaut B. - Polidicks

[TABLE="class: outer_border, width: 800, align: left"] [TR] [TD][TABLE="width: 640, align: center"] [TR] [TD][h2]NASA's Hubble Reveals Rogue Planetary Orbit For Fomalhaut B[/h2][B]Newly released NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of a vast debris disk encircling the nearby star Fomalhaut and a mysterious planet circling it may provide forensic evidence of a titanic planetary disruption in the system. [/B][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD][QUOTE][IMG]http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/717887main1_p1301aw-670.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD][QUOTE]This false-color composite image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, reveals the orbital motion of the planet Fomalhaut b. Based on these observations, astronomers calculated that the planet is in a 2,000-year-long, highly elliptical orbit. The planet will appear to cross a vast belt of debris around the star roughly 20 years from now. If the planet's orbit lies in the same plane with the belt, icy and rocky debris in the belt could crash into the planet's atmosphere and produce various phenomena. The black circle at the center of the image blocks out the light from the bright star, allowing reflected light from the belt and planet to be photographed. The Hubble images were taken with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph in 2010 and 2012. Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. Kalas (University of California, Berkeley and SETI Institute)[/QUOTE][/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD][TABLE="width: 500, align: center"] [TR] [TD]Astronomers are surprised to find the debris belt is wider than previously known, spanning a section of space from 14 to nearly 20 billion miles from the star. Even more surprisingly, the latest Hubble images have allowed a team of astronomers to calculate the planet follows an unusual elliptical orbit that carries it on a potentially destructive path through the vast dust ring. The planet, called Fomalhaut b, swings as close to its star as 4.6 billion miles, and the outermost point of its orbit is 27 billion miles away from the star. The orbit was recalculated from the newest Hubble observation made last year. "We are shocked. This is not what we expected," said Paul Kalas of the University of California at Berkeley and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. The Fomalhaut team led by Kalas considers this circumstantial evidence there may be other planet-like bodies in the system that gravitationally disturbed Fomalhaut b to place it in such a highly eccentric orbit. The team presented its finding Tuesday at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif. Among several scenarios to explain Fomalhaut b's 2,000-year-long orbit is the hypothesis that an as yet undiscovered planet gravitationally ejected Fomalhaut b from a position closer to the star, and sent it flying in an orbit that extends beyond the dust belt. "Hot Jupiters get tossed through scattering events, where one planet goes in and one gets thrown out," said co-investigator Mark Clampin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This could be the planet that gets thrown out." Hubble also found the dust and ice belt encircling the star Fomalhaut has an apparent gap slicing across the belt. This might have been carved by another undetected planet. Hubble's exquisite view of the dust belt shows irregularities that strongly motivate a search for other planets in the system. If its orbit lies in the same plane with the dust belt, then Fomalhaut b will intersect the belt around 2032 on the outbound leg of its orbit. During the crossing, icy and rocky debris in the belt could crash into the planet's atmosphere and create the type of cosmic fireworks seen when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter. Most of the fireworks from collisions will be seen in infrared light. However, if Fomalhaut b is not co-planar with the belt, the only thing to be seen will be a gradual dimming of Fomalhaut b as it travels farther from the star. Kalas hypothesized that Fomalhaut b's extreme orbit is a major clue in explaining why the planet is unusually bright in visible light, but very dim in infrared light. It is possible the planet's optical brightness originates from a ring or shroud of dust around the planet, which reflects starlight. The dust would be rapidly produced by satellites orbiting the planet, which would suffer extreme erosion by impacts and gravitational stirring when Fomalhaut b enters into the planetary system after a millennium of deep freeze beyond the main belt. An analogy can be found by looking at Saturn, which has a tenuous, but very large dust ring produced when meteoroids hit the outer moon Phoebe. The team has also considered a different scenario where a hypothetical second dwarf planet suffered a catastrophic collision with Fomalhaut b. The collision scenario would explain why the star Fomalhaut has a narrow outer belt linked to an extreme planet. But in this case the belt is young, less than 10,000 years old, and it is difficult to produce energetic collisions far from the star in such young systems. Fomalhaut is a special system because it looks like scientists may have a snapshot of what our solar system was doing 4 billion years ago. The planetary architecture is being redrawn, the comet belts are evolving, and planets may be gaining and losing their moons. Astronomers will continue monitoring Fomalhaut b for decades to come because they may have a chance to observe a planet entering an icy debris belt that is like the Kuiper Belt at the fringe of our own solar system. For more information and for related images, please visit: [URL]http://www.nasa.gov/hubble[/URL] [URL]http://hubblesite.org/news/2013/01[/URL][/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD][B]SOURCE: [/B] [URL]http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/rogue-fomalhaut.html[/URL][/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] This is incredible! For those with a short memory, Fomalhaut B was the "zombie" exoplanet. [URL]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/27/fomalhaut-b-exoplanet_n_2026168.html[/URL]

Sucks if you live on Fomalhaut B [editline]9th January 2013[/editline] buy a real big umbrella

I read the title as [B]Fomarl[/B]haut B" in it. Nostalgia'd fucking hard. Maybe a nice bomb shelter dug deep over an umbrella.

Stop fucking with them damn planets Sauron

The article seems a little bit pessimistic. While it's going more along the, "lol planet's probably gonna get obliterated," route, I'm more thinking, "Sweet! We might get to see the 'genesis moment' of this planet in 20 years time!" We might very well be watching the point in this planet's history when it gets enough water and other materials deposited onto its surface via comets to allow life to develop in the future (assuming its fucked up orbit gets corrected at some point in the future by a gas giant as bro-like as Jupiter or something like that).

It's watching me.

I'm glad they're still using Hubble. No sense just leaving it floating up there if it still works, after all.

[QUOTE=TestECull;39153548]I'm glad they're still using Hubble. No sense just leaving it floating up there if it still works, after all.[/QUOTE] I wish they would hurry up with JWST (and fund it more.....). Really can't wait until they get that up there. [editline]9th January 2013[/editline] Though they shouldn't rush it and make it worse as a consequence of course.

[QUOTE=sltungle;39152204]The article seems a little bit pessimistic. While it's going more along the, "lol planet's probably gonna get obliterated," route, I'm more thinking, "Sweet! We might get to see the 'genesis moment' of this planet in 20 years time!" We might very well be watching the point in this planet's history when it gets enough water and other materials deposited onto its surface via comets to allow life to develop in the future (assuming its fucked up orbit gets corrected at some point in the future by a gas giant as bro-like as Jupiter or something like that).[/QUOTE] That's well and good, but optimism isn't going to correct a crazy orbit that could destroy it. Also, even if we were around for that "genesis" moment, it's not very likely we'd see it.

[quote]"We are shocked. This is not what we expected,"[/quote] Science at work

[QUOTE=LarparNar;39153573]I wish they would hurry up with JWST (and fund it more.....). Really can't wait until they get that up there. [editline]9th January 2013[/editline] Though they shouldn't rush it and make it worse as a consequence of course.[/QUOTE] I'm waiting to see what they will do with the other Hubbles (they were in a shed somewhere, got donated to NASA) That and LISA. I see very interesting stuff coming out of that

[QUOTE=LarparNar;39153573]I wish they would hurry up with JWST (and fund it more.....). Really can't wait until they get that up there. [editline]9th January 2013[/editline] Though they shouldn't rush it and make it worse as a consequence of course.[/QUOTE] Didn't I hear a while back on here that there's 2 hubble class satellites in storage because the US government want to use them as spy satellites, and that's there's plans to eventually launch them with modern hardware.

[QUOTE=viperfan7;39155418]Didn't I hear a while back on here that there's 2 hubble class satellites in storage because the US government want to use them as spy satellites, and that's there's plans to eventually launch them with modern hardware.[/QUOTE] That you did and hopefull [url=http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2012/06/nasa-receives-two-hubble-class-space-telescopes-from-spy-agency/1#.UO2ifW80Ft0]Merry [holiday] Nasa[/url]