Planet Dagon Disappears
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Quoted By: >>13249493 >>13249510 >>13250328
Exo-planet Fomalhaut b AKA Planet Dagon, turns out to have been a mirage.
"Not really a planet, we just imagined it was" Says famous astronomer
https://earthsky.org/space/fomalhaut-b-not-an-exoplanet-instead-a-dust-cloud/
When is a planet not really a planet? Many new exoplanets – over 4,000 now so far – have been discovered and confirmed orbiting other stars. But, sometimes, all might not be quite as it first appears. Meet Fomalhaut b, thought to be a massive world and thought to be one of the only exoplanets to be directly imaged to date. This world orbits the bright star Fomalhaut in the southern constellation Piscis Austrinus. It’s only 25 light-years away and so well loved that it was among the first group of exoplanets to be given proper names, in this case Dagon. Alas. New observations from the Hubble Space Telescope showed that Fomalhaut b or Dagon has apparently disappeared. The results suggest that the well-loved planet wasn’t a planet at all, but rather an expanding dust cloud that formed after two large icy bodies collided.
The disappointing, yet still fascinating, peer-reviewed findings from researchers at the University of Arizona were published on April 20, 2020, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The announcement that Fomalhaut b or Dagon had been photographed caused a sensation in 2008. Until now, it was thought to be a massive planet. But the new study refutes that:
>Although originally thought to be a massive exoplanet, the faintness of Fomalhaut b in the infrared and its failure to perturb Fomalhaut’s debris ring indicate a low mass. We use all available data to reveal that it has faded in brightness and grown in extent, with motion consistent with an escaping orbit. This behavior confirms suggestions that the source is a dispersing cloud of dust, produced by a massive collision between two planetesimals. The visible signature appears to be very fine dust escaping under the influence of radiation pressure.
"Not really a planet, we just imagined it was" Says famous astronomer
https://earthsky.org/space/fomalhaut-b-not-an-exoplanet-instead-a-dust-cloud/
When is a planet not really a planet? Many new exoplanets – over 4,000 now so far – have been discovered and confirmed orbiting other stars. But, sometimes, all might not be quite as it first appears. Meet Fomalhaut b, thought to be a massive world and thought to be one of the only exoplanets to be directly imaged to date. This world orbits the bright star Fomalhaut in the southern constellation Piscis Austrinus. It’s only 25 light-years away and so well loved that it was among the first group of exoplanets to be given proper names, in this case Dagon. Alas. New observations from the Hubble Space Telescope showed that Fomalhaut b or Dagon has apparently disappeared. The results suggest that the well-loved planet wasn’t a planet at all, but rather an expanding dust cloud that formed after two large icy bodies collided.
The disappointing, yet still fascinating, peer-reviewed findings from researchers at the University of Arizona were published on April 20, 2020, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The announcement that Fomalhaut b or Dagon had been photographed caused a sensation in 2008. Until now, it was thought to be a massive planet. But the new study refutes that:
>Although originally thought to be a massive exoplanet, the faintness of Fomalhaut b in the infrared and its failure to perturb Fomalhaut’s debris ring indicate a low mass. We use all available data to reveal that it has faded in brightness and grown in extent, with motion consistent with an escaping orbit. This behavior confirms suggestions that the source is a dispersing cloud of dust, produced by a massive collision between two planetesimals. The visible signature appears to be very fine dust escaping under the influence of radiation pressure.
