We all see planets like wonderful bodies that orbit the stars. It is like a child that stays with his or her mother. But our story consists of a planet that disappeared, got lost and is nowhere to be found. Scientists have covered this mystery by telling a possibility that has a very low chance of occurring. Today, I am going to provide my analysis on how a planet went from having an achievement related with light to a mystery related to the dark. Let’s divide the journey of this wonder of space into a few phases from starting to end.
PHASE
I: DISCOVERY
In 2008, James Graham and Paul Kalas
were just talking to each other while looking through the images sent by the
Hubble Space Telescope. Suddenly, they noticed a bright red star with one of
the most stunning system that scientists have discovered. They immediately
noticed that one particular dot among the system’s inner portion was shining
brighter than the others. They got a team, led by Paul Kalas and James Graham
themselves along with their collaborators, to work on why this was happening.
When the scientists were about to start the research, they realised that it was
the Fomalhaut Star System. Within a month of the research, they came to a
conclusion to why it was happening so. NASA officially declared it as a planet.
Even more fascinating was the reason why it was glowing brighter. James Graham
gave it the title- “The first planet directly visible through light”1.
It was a glorious day. Scientists were cheering and enjoying about this new
beautiful discovery. They named it Fomalhaut B but when the system was
found to have another star just 1-2 light years away, they named it ‘Dagon’
and it made history.
Scientists carried on the joy for about 5-6 months and then forgot. They did check up on it and continued to research and put out data about it. The researches provided a brief inside. Dagon was orbiting the Fomalhaut star with a distance of about 7-8 AU. It had a bright red colour and was about twice the size of Jupiter and also had about a little more mass than Jupiter’s mass. It was less dense being as dense as an Ice giant. Although it was a gas giant, its revolution speed was much low being around Mars’ speed. It wasn’t surrounded by many asteroids as well. After a great three years, research on Dagon was stopped in 2011. The Hubble Space Telescope did send us a picture of it in 2013 and again in 2016 with NASA having a gap of three years between each photo release and within those 3 years people seemed to forget about it.
PHASE
III: DISBELIEF
There’s
a famous proverb- “All good things must come to an end.” Well…. our beloved
Dagon also fell victim of it. NASA’s three-year plan for Dagon was being
followed and when 2019 hit, they looked through the images of the Fomalhaut
system, and they were shocked. They couldn’t believe their own eyes. Dagon was
gone. It was nowhere to be found and scientists retook the pictures several
times but still couldn’t find it. It was a moment of horror and NASA stopped
all other ongoing projects to focus on this disappearance.
PHASE
IV: THE RETURN OF THE FALLEN
2019 kicked off the second massive event about Dagon. Everyone was in disbelief and were hoping that NASA might come to a conclusion. NASA took a total of three months before announcing that they were wrong about Dagon being a planet and they categorized it as an expanding dust cloud by giving proof that the images of 2016 showed Dagon to be larger than the images of 2013. And this marked the end of Dagon’s life and its achievement of being the first plant directly visible through light. But, was it really the end? A wonder of space becomes a mystery? Even NASA weren’t 100% sure about it being an expanding dust cloud. But, how can scientists, with the best telescope of history manage to not realise their mistake for 11 years? This is why people believe that NASA are wrong about this theory of Dagon being an expanding dust cloud. This is also the reason why Dagon is one of the ‘Unsolvable Mysteries of Space’. Let’s take a closer look.
PHASE
V: SELF RESEARCH
There are three possibilities. Let’s
go over them one by one.
POSSIBILITY
1---
When
Dagon was considered a planet, scientists considered it to have the following
composition-
|
MATERIAL |
TYPE |
MELTING
POINT /
BOILING POINT |
EMMISIVITY/
1µm |
COMPOSITION |
|
Magnesium |
Alkaline
Earth metal |
932
K / 1363 K |
0.15 |
23.78% |
|
Aluminium |
Post-Transition
metal |
933.3
K / 2743K |
0.46 |
51.32% |
|
Iron |
Transition
meatal |
1811
K / 3134 K |
0.35 |
8.29% |
|
Graphite |
Physical
form of carbon |
Graphite
sublimates At
3923 K |
0.85 |
16.61% |
So,
if we do the calculations of how much heat travelled from Fomalhaut to Dagon,
we will have to use the Stefan Boltzmann Law-
Q=ꝹeAT4
Q=
amount of heat travelled
Ꝺ=
Boltzmann constant
e=
Emissivity
A=
Area
T=
Absolute temperature.
After doing the math, we find out that the
temperature isn’t enough so this possibility is ruled out.
POSSIBILITY 2---
The
second possibility is just NASA’s theory. There needs to be two huge planets
both at least the size of Saturn and being 60%gas each and colliding at a speed
of 137.8 kmps each. The chances are pretty low being 1 in 243855360000. That is
insanely low.
POSSIBILITY
3---
The
third possibility is that Dagon got asteroid bombed between 2016 and 2019. But
due to Fomalhaut system’s arrangement the chances at an approximate (
PHASE
VI: CONCLUSION
We can come to the conclusion that even though NASA’S dust cloud theory seems irrelevant, it is still has the highest possibility. There is a reason why they are considered the best space research organisation. Well, that’s what this article was about and the story of a planet with a happy starting but one of the saddest endings.
Sources
1. Exoplanet Fomalhaut B, On The Move https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/
References
1. ‘SPACE’, PARRAGON reprint
edition 2022 www.parragonpublishing.in
3. Article on Fomalhaut star
system, Wikipedia www.simple.wikipedia.org
FUAD AHMED
BATCH 27