EVERYONE!! Fomalhaut is at it again!! Crashing its planetesimals together and making dust clouds!!!!
I am very excited because I and others wrote papers saying that this would happen: if Fomalhaut b (the first directly imaged "exoplanet" oops) was actually a dust cloud, it should fade away and another one should appear on ~decade timescales.
I love being right about science predictions that don't involve destroying the night sky or atmosphere or Kessler Syndrome!
@sundogplanets The Sun: ah, I remember those days. I was a young star back then. ☀️
@sundogplanets Congrats! :-)
.oO( I would really love to do science where my predictions come true and I can be happy about it; Don't get me wrong... I _do_ science where my predictions become true. However, that usually means that something really depressing is happening. -_- )
I learned about this from a planetary journal club at UBC that I had time to run to (while still mic'd) between filming. The journal club was led by my PhD supervisor, who I wrote a paper with on Fomalhaut planetesimal collisions back in 2015!
Damn it's fun to do some real science in between all the depressing stuff.
@sundogplanets Hah! Is it Kessler Syndrome for a star if it's crashing its own planets into bits?
