The Buzz: Hubble Reveals Planet in Piscis

Using the Hubble Telescope, scientists have successfully viewed a planet revolving around a different star than our beloved Sun for the first time. The planet has been dubbed Fomalhaut b and revolves around the star Fomalhaut, the brightest star in the constellation Piscis calculated to reside about 25 light years away. ScienceBlogger Steinn Sigurðsson broke the news on Dynamics of Cats, and has posted multiple images of the planet.

More like this

Coronographic imaging with the Advanced Camera for Surveys, on the Hubble Space Telescope, has revealed a jupiter mass planetary companion, with confirmed common proper motion with its parent star, Fomalhaut. This would be the first robust bona fide direct imaging detection of an extrasolar planet…
On Dynamics of Cats, Steinn Sigurðsson flags a few foreboding articles on the future of NASA. Sigurðsson says the orbiting telescope Galex, or Galaxy Evolution Explorer, will be shut down later this year despite continuing to function. NASA has withdrawn from the international research mission…
The first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star thanks to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope: Planet Fomalhaut b orbits the star Fomalhaut, 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis. I cannot help but be reminded of Tolkien: 'The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was…
On Starts With a Bang, Ethan Siegel explains that although we see the full range of spectral classes in the night sky—from cool red M stars to blazing blue O's—75% of nearby stars "are the reddest, coolest, M-class stars, including the closest star to us." Only 4.2 light-years away, Proxima…