1
00:00:00,033 --> 00:00:01,566
I present to you,

2
00:00:01,566 --> 00:00:03,400
the Cosmic Creepy Crew,

3
00:00:03,400 --> 00:00:06,400
a story of discovery and deception:

4
00:00:10,900 --> 00:00:12,233
Imagine a telescope

5
00:00:12,233 --> 00:00:14,100
that allows you to see the deepest

6
00:00:14,100 --> 00:00:16,566
and darkest corners of the night sky.

7
00:00:16,566 --> 00:00:18,033
In 2008,

8
00:00:18,033 --> 00:00:19,200
scientists peered through

9
00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:21,000
the Hubble Space Telescope

10
00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:22,833
to see a planetary system

11
00:00:22,833 --> 00:00:24,733
around a star bigger

12
00:00:24,733 --> 00:00:26,666
and brighter than our own,

13
00:00:26,666 --> 00:00:27,366
called

14
00:00:28,433 --> 00:00:30,233
What they saw around the star

15
00:00:30,233 --> 00:00:32,233
in the rings of the dusty debris

16
00:00:32,233 --> 00:00:34,366
seemed to be a new exoplanet.

17
00:00:34,366 --> 00:00:35,400
They called it

18
00:00:36,733 --> 00:00:38,300
They thought they made a discovery

19
00:00:38,300 --> 00:00:39,600
of a lifetime,

20
00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:42,133
but they were dead wrong.

21
00:00:42,200 --> 00:00:43,100
Over the years,

22
00:00:43,100 --> 00:00:43,833
each time

23
00:00:43,833 --> 00:00:45,166
they looked with Hubble,

24
00:00:45,166 --> 00:00:47,433
Fomalhaut b began to fade away,

25
00:00:47,700 --> 00:00:49,200
twisting into a creepy,

26
00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:50,266
ghostly shadow

27
00:00:50,266 --> 00:00:51,766
of what it used to be.

28
00:00:51,800 --> 00:00:53,200
Even weirder,

29
00:00:53,333 --> 00:00:55,466
it didn’t give off any heat.

30
00:00:56,233 --> 00:00:57,300
The more it faded,

31
00:00:57,300 --> 00:00:58,600
the more scientists thought

32
00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:01,000
it wasn’t an exoplanet at all.

33
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:02,433
It was a dust cloud,

34
00:01:02,433 --> 00:01:03,633
the haunted remains

35
00:01:03,633 --> 00:01:04,633
of planetesimals

36
00:01:04,633 --> 00:01:06,033
colliding into each other,

37
00:01:06,033 --> 00:01:07,933
their demise on display

38
00:01:07,933 --> 00:01:10,933
for our own morbid curiosity.

39
00:01:11,033 --> 00:01:12,866
And scientists used the dust cloud

40
00:01:12,866 --> 00:01:14,000
to estimate the size

41
00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:15,766
and number of colliding objects

42
00:01:15,766 --> 00:01:17,533
in the Fomalhaut debris disk,

43
00:01:17,533 --> 00:01:19,233
something nearly impossible

44
00:01:19,233 --> 00:01:20,633
to do otherwise.

45
00:01:20,666 --> 00:01:22,100
In 2020,

46
00:01:22,100 --> 00:01:23,033
Fomalhaut b

47
00:01:23,033 --> 00:01:24,000
was removed from the

48
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:25,766
NASA Exoplanet Archive,

49
00:01:25,766 --> 00:01:28,500
erased like it never existed.

50
00:01:28,500 --> 00:01:30,000
Because it didn’t.

51
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:31,333
So when you look beyond

52
00:01:31,333 --> 00:01:32,300
our own stars,

53
00:01:32,600 --> 00:01:33,666
be careful,

54
00:01:34,166 --> 00:01:35,733
because you just might catch

55
00:01:35,733 --> 00:01:37,800
the ghostly echoes of worlds

56
00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:39,600
that never were.