fomalhaut

"The man's a born straggler... another lucky exception to the rules of natural selection. A million years ago he would've been an easy snack for a saber-toothed tiger." -Carl Hiaasen Welcome to the latest Messier Monday, where each week we take a look at one of Charles Messier's original catalogue of 110 deep-sky objects that comet-hunters might easily confuse with those transient passers-by in our Solar System. Image credit: Greg Scheckler, from his 2008 Messier marathon, where he nabbed 105/110. Quite to the contrary, each of the 110 objects in the Messier catalogue are (semi-)permanent…
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.