Star sacrifices 2,000 comets a DAY to cloak twin planets in dust
Ice cloud hid worlds from boffins - until now By Brid-Aine
Parnell • In Science • At 10:38 GMT 13th April 2012 Astroboffins
using a new multinational observatory have spotted evidence of
two planets orbiting nearby star Fomalhaut – which is just 25
light years away and cloaked in a comet graveyard. The Atacama
Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a joint project
between Europe, the US, East Asia and Chile is still only in its
Early Science phase, with just a quarter of its antennas
available for this observation, but it was still capable enough
to confirm the unsure theory that the star has a two-planet
system. In 2008, the Hubble Space Telescope had spotted the
planet closest to Fomalhaut, which was then thought to be larger
than Saturn, but follow up infrared searching failed to find it,
leading to some doubts about whether there were any planets
there at all. "ALMA may be still under construction, but it is
already the most powerful t