Credit: NASA, ESA, P. Kalas and J. Graham (University of California, Berkeley), and M. Clampin (NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

The top view, taken by NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the first visible-light image of a dust ring around the nearby, bright young star Fomalhaut (HD 216956). The image offers the strongest evidence yet that an unruly planet may be tugging on the dusty belt. Part of the ring [at left] is outside the telescope's view. The ring is tilted obliquely to our line of sight. The center of the ring is about 1.4 billion miles (15 astronomical units) away from the star. The dot near the ring's center marks the star's location. Astronomers believe that an unseen planet moving in an elliptical orbit is reshaping the ring.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0510b/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License