6/27/2005: Evidence of planets in new Hubble image

[Undertoad]

Didn't note who submitted this - a recent Hubble space telescope image release.

The image alone doesn't tell the story; this Discovery Channel story explains it better.

Astronomers looking at one the brightest stars in the southern sky have made a surprise discovery: it has been hiding a bright, visible ring of dust that just screams "Planets!"

Fomalhaut, 23 light-years from Earth, is the 17th brightest star in the night sky, residing in the Southern Fish constellation (Piscis Austrinus), so it's easy to see with the naked eye from the southern hemisphere. But it took the Hubble Space Telescope with a clever device to block out the glaring light of the star itself and see the graceful, elongated band of dust.

Yeah. You thought the aliens were from Mars. Nope, they're from Fomalhaut! The problem is, they can't see us due to all that dust. If we can get to them, surely they'll have developed the greatest vacuum cleaners in the universe.