New Hubble Pictures Show Something Is Orbiting the Star
Fomalhaut…But What Is It?  Bad Astronomy The entire universe in
blog form Jan. 9 2013 7:30 AM  Sauron’s Got Some ‘Splainin to Do
The mystery deepens: What the heck is orbiting the star
Fomalhaut?  Phil Plait Phil Plait   In 2008, astronomers using
Hubble Space Telescope announced they had found a planet
orbiting the young nearby star Fomalhaut, located a mere 25
light years away. In fact, it was one of the very first alien
planets ever directly imaged [that link goes to a very cool
gallery of all the exoplanets directly seen so far]. The star is
surrounded by a vast ring of dust, making it look like the Eye
of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings movies, and there was a lot
of circumstantial evidence the ring was being influenced by a
planet. In the Hubble images, there was a blob of light that had
moved over the course of 2004 to 2006, pretty much as you’d
expect a planet located there to move.  Then trouble set in.
Some astronomers claimed it wasn’t a pl