Collisions within Fomalhaut debris disk (IMAGE)

University of California - Berkeley

Collisions within Fomalhaut debris disk

Caption

This composite Hubble Space Telescope image shows the debris ring and dust clouds cs1 and cs2 around the star Fomalhaut. For comparison, dust cloud cs1, imaged in 2012, is pictured with dust cloud cs2, imaged in 2023. The dashed circles mark the location of these clouds. When dust cloud cs2 suddenly appeared, astronomers quickly realized they had witnessed the violent collision of two massive objects. Previously thought to be a planet, cs1 is now classified as a similar debris cloud. In this image, Fomalhaut itself is masked out to allow the fainter features to be seen. Its location is marked by the white star.

Credit

Image: NASA, ESA, Paul Kalas/UC Berkeley. Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

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