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NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light
snapshot of a planet circling another star.

Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the
planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star
Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis
Australis, or the "Southern Fish."

Fomalhaut has been a candidate for planet hunting ever since an
excess of dust was discovered around the star in the early 1980s
by NASA's Infrared Astronomy Satellite, IRAS.

The planet is brighter than expected for an object of three Jupiter
masses. One possibility is that it has a Saturn-like ring of ice and
dust reflecting starlight. The ring might eventually coalesce to
form moons. The ring's estimated size is comparable to the
region around Jupiter and its four largest orbiting satellites.

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"Victoria crater" Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell  SPACE