Exocomets Light Up 100 Billion Kilometers of Space
A remarkable new image reveals the teething pains of an entire planetary system
By Caleb A. Scharf on May 19, 2017
Humans have cataloged the star Fomalhaut for at least two thousand years without knowing it as anything more than the 18th brightest stellar object in the night sky.
But in the 21st century Fomalhaut has become a key system in the quest to understand the nature of planets and their formation. This relatively massive star (about 90% more massive than the Sun) is very young; clocking in at somewhere between 100 and 440 million years old. It's also surrounded by a set of so-called debris disks - material that represents both the detritus and building blocks of planetary objects.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/exocomets-light-up-100-billion-kilometers-of-space/
