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Does Famous Exoplanet 'Fomalhaut b' Really Exist?
astroengine writes "The first exoplanet ever to be directly imaged by the Hubble space telescope may not exist. In 2008, the world was in awe of the famous 'Eye of Sauron' image of the star Fomalhaut's dusty ring — plus a slowly moving object that was identified as Fomalhaut b, a gas giant world approximately three times the mass of Jupiter. However, due to a strange orbital misstep detected between 2008 and 2009 photographs, the validity of Fomalhaut b's detection is being questioned, generating some controversy in the exoplanet community."
This article is really making me question everything.
First Pluto, now Fomalhaut b. Before long we'll find the Earth isn't really a planet either. (Maybe a gigantic computer run by mice or something).
It's really quite simple: We just need to go out there and have a look.
It's nice to the ET's have a community on the exoplanet. So it must exist.
21st Century Renaissance Man
To maintain a stable orbit at the same distance from a more massive object would mean moving faster, not slower, right?
There is an exoplanet community?
According to TFA, the central problem is that the claimed planet seems to have an orbit which goes into the dusk disk around the star. But if this happens regularly, the disk should have been disrupted. The planet is also much brighter than one would expect for a planet in that position. If this isn't a planet it isn't clear what it is. There does seem to be something there. This could be some sort of artifact of the imaging methods but given the fact that it has been imaged with multiple instruments this seems extremely unlikely. So if this turns out not to be a planet we may be looking at some neat astronomical phenomenon not previously seen. Or it could be a bunch of unusually shiny dust. Hard to tell at this point. This is the sort of thing where the James Webb Telescope could be quite helpful. As of the last update it looks like James Webb is back on. But given how the current Congress acts, it could easily move to being canceled again.
This article seems to be about a grudge match between Paul Kalas, who was the lead in the discovery of this planet and Ray Jayawardhana, another astronomer who seems to want to be the first to have directly imaged an exoplanet. Since Kalas came first, Jayawardhana's only option seems to be to discredit the earlier discovery. One of his arguments is that Fomalhaut B wasn't really directly imaged since it probably has rings (accounting for its brightness) and so the rings were what was imaged and not the planet. The chief argument seems to be that the third picture taken of it doesn't match the expected orbit from the previous 2 pictures. The previous 2 pictures, however, were taken with an instrument that broke before the third picture was taken, so the accuracy of the third picture is in doubt. In any case, no-one seems to be doubting that it's something really, really big, but nowhere near big enough to be a star, that's been imaged in another star system. So, if it's not an exoplanet, it's still something extraordinary.
For now, it reads like just a pissing contest.
That's no planet. It's a space station.
Even in the original paper presenting the discovery the light detected was likely not that from a planet itself. Light was too bright and the wrong color. Infrared light (at thermal temperatures) was not detected. Instead reflected visible light, the same color as the star was detected. There are a number of speculations on what is emitting the light, e.g., a disk, like around Saturn but larger --- not ridiculous given the latest late stage circumJovian disk models, a dust cloud of captured comets; Wyatt and Kennedy). Note the detected object was not in the location as predicted previous to discovery by Quillen (likely also not happy with Kalas et al as the prediction was not mentioned by the discovers). Quillen predicted an object too faint to have been detected (and lower mass than claimed). Fomalhaut B has not been confirmed by any other telescope or instrument -- unlike the HR8799 planets which have been confirmed by multiple other studies and were detected in the infrared.
...you plan to solve global warming by moving to Mars and throwing everything else in the solar system into the sun?!
I had plans to retire there, I even copied Elon Musk's plans for his Mars bungalow. Now I has a sad, I have to keep living on this mud ball? All the other planets in the universe are much, much better than this rock. Shucks.
Planetoidinal Artifact Serpentus Nebulus.
It is in the Felinae Schroedinger System
In the Elephantus Pinki Cloud
In the Deleriomo Tremendouso Galaxy...
Where the hell did we get the glass for this lense, anyway?"
Given the difficulties in merely detecting, much less observing, exoplanets, and the fact that we haven't been doing this for very long and the technologies are new, the only surprise that there aren't more undecided cases like this.
Kicks into what? What is this supposed to mean? Does this support the planet exists or not support its existence? No I'm not going to go looking for the meaning of some crazy idiom--I could not care less to be frank.
Bloody journalists. I swear the reliance of democratic society on these people verges on lunacy.
May the Maths Be with you!