Sauron is real and he lives 25 light years away

OK, maybe not the Eye of Sauron, because that was shot with a special filter that blocks out most of the light from the star Fomalhaut at the heart of its solar system. What’s really significant about this — beyond it looking cool — is that it’s pretty definite confirmation of a planet nearby, sweeping through stellar dust as it orbits.

From the New Scientist:

The most likely explanation is that the gravity of one or more unseen planets is dragging the ring askew. The fact that the inner edge of the ring is relatively well-defined adds further weight to the argument because it suggests the unseen planets are sweeping up stray dust within the radius of the ring.

The image was captured by astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, US, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center using Hubble’s coronagraph. This device blocks the glare of a star while gathering the faint reflected light from any surrounding ring.

Odds that the planet will be called Mordor are pretty high, I’m guessing.

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