‘Zombie Planet’ Sadly Not A Planet Inhabited By Zombies (That We Know Of)
In a fairly benign example of ‘Don’t Use the Zed Word’, the well-documented phenomenon of calling everything under the sun ‘Zombie’ lately, Undead or not, we have now a ‘Zombie planet’:
Fomalhaut b is a giant alien planet that is nearly three times the mass of Jupiter. It was the first alien planet ever directly imaged in visible light. The planet orbits the dust-shrouded star Fomalhaut and is located about 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Austrinus.
In October, scientists dubbed the world a “zombie planet” because it appeared to rise from the academic grave. After first being discovered in 2008, subsequent studies suggested the planet was nothing more than a huge dust cloud. In 2012, astronomers resurrected Fomalhaut b’s planet status when new observations proved there was a planetary object embedded in a free-floating dust cloud.
And here I was hoping for a planet inhabited by the Undead. Phooey.
Oh well. At least this isn’t a slander on the Differently Animated!
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