Fomalhaut Dust Disk Indicates Planets

One of the brightest stars on the sky likely has planets. Fomalhaut , actually the 17th brightest star in the night sky, is a mere 22 light-years away but only a fraction of the age of our Sun . Recent observations in far infrared light with a detector cooled to near zero kelvins indicate a dust disk surrounding Fomalhaut that has both a hole in the center and a warped edge. Now the hole in the center indicates that dust has fallen onto interior planets -- possibly like the Earth -- while the warp at the edge indicates the gravitational pull of a planet like Jupiter or Saturn . The discovery image was taken with the SCUBA instrument through the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii , USA . The above illustration shows what the Fomalhaut dusty planetary system might look like from near the large planet.