Zooming in on Fomalhaut
This video sequence starts with a wide-field view of the sky around the star Fomalhaut in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus (The Southern Fish). Fomalhaut is the brightest star in the constellation and one of the brightest stars known to have an orbiting planet. It lies about 25 light-years from the Earth and is surrounded by a huge disc of dust. The final view of this video shows a new ALMA image of the disc (orange) and the new results from ALMA have given astronomers a major breakthrough in understanding a nearby planetary system and provided valuable clues about how such systems form and evolve. Note that ALMA has so far only observed a part of the ring. The underlying blue picture shows an earlier picture obtained by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO). Visible light image: the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope A. Fujii/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)
Press Coverage
- ALMA’s First Results Tackle the Controversial Fomalhaut: Astrobites, April 15, 2012
- How Planets Paint Rings Around Stars: Time, April 11, 2012
- New ALMA Images Stoke Exoplanet Flame: Sky & Telescope, April 10, 2012
- Why all the fuss over a star called Fomalhaut?: Al Jazeera, April 29, 2012
- Weird Super-Earths Foudn Orbiting Neighbor Star: Discovery News, April 13, 2012
- Star Sacrifies 2,000 comets a Day to Cloack Twin Planets in Dust: Ice cloud hid worlds from boffins - until now: The Register, April 13, 2012
- Snowball’s chance in hell: Deadly game of ‘galactic dodgems’ around nearby star crushes 2000 icy comets into dust every day: Daily Mail, April 13, 2012
- ALMA reveals workings of nearby planetary system: Astronomy.com, April 13, 2012
- Planets’ gravity tidies stellar ring: Science News, April 6, 2012
- New Evidence For Fomalhaut Planets: Universe Today, April 15, 2012
- ALMA Observations of Fomalhaut: David Rodriguez Blog, April 3, 2012
- UF-led team uses new observatory to characterize low-mass planets orbiting nearby star: UF press release, April 12, 2012
- ALMA Reveals Workings of Nearby Planetary System: ESO press release, April 12, 2012 [with translations] [video] [ALMA PR, NRAO PR, JAO PR]
