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Fomalhaut's Exoplanets Have Orbits That Defy Theory
astroengine writes "Astronomers believe they have found a second distant planet around Fomalhaut, a bright young neighbor star, and that the far-out world — like its sister planet — is shepherding and shaping the star's ring of dust. If confirmed, theorists have some work to do explaining how the planet, believed to be a few times bigger than Mars, ended up 155 times as far away from its parent star as Earth is to the sun. 'We're learning a lot about planets that are close to their stars, but that is not the full picture. We also want to know about systems where planets are very far out. By considering near-, far- and mid-range, we can get a complete picture of planet formation,' University of Florida astronomer Aaron Boley said."
There was another fascinating bit of news about Fomalhaut a few days ago: "ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory has studied the dusty belt around the nearby star Fomalhaut. The dust appears to be coming from collisions that destroy up to thousands of icy comets every day."
No, that's a hypothesis.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
They're just a little higher on the Kardashev scale than astronomers can imagine.
Meh, I've read about stuff like this since I was a kid.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Astrophysics seems to be an entertaining field - a surprise every other week. Sure beats particle physics.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.