Barack Obama has threatened NASA funding cuts. He should see this picture taken by the Hubble firstOf the dozens of constellations recorded by the ancient Roman astrologer Ptolemy, there is one shaped like a fish, tucked away deep in the Southern sky. He called it Piscis Austrinus, and the star that represents this fish's mouth is also the fish's brightest light. In fact, it's one of the brightest stars in the sky.
Its name is Fomalhaut (in Arabic, Fom al-haut means "mouth of the southern whale"), a young star just 200 million years old, 25 light years away (a distance about six billion times the circumference of the Earth).
In the autumn sky, it's the only first-magnitude star seen from the mid-northern latitudes -- in cities like Shanghai, Baghdad and Casablanca. It's no wonder that Fomalhaut, appropriately known as "The Lonely Star of Autumn," has made its way into Chinese, Persian and Arabic culture.
Its mystical quality has also made its way into Western culture. One of Fomalhaut's many literary references is in "Radio Free Albemuth," a novel by American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, where it is the origin of an alien satellite.
But now, it's something entirely alien to Fomalhaut that is looking into its region of the universe -- NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Orbiting 360 miles above the Earth's surface, it's the first and only space telescope to view the universe using primarily visible light.
The Hubble has taken a snapshot of one of the Lonely Star's planets: Fomalhaut b, a planet three times the mass of Jupiter. The image is the first one taken of a planet circling another star other than our own, using only visible light. It is the result of eight years of NASA's research.
Speaking about America's space program in an interview with Cleveland's WKYC-TV in February, President-elect Barack Obama said, "I want to do a thorough review because some of these programs may not be moving in the right direction and I want to make sure that NASA spending is a little more coherent than it has been over the last several years."
He has said that he will fund his education plan in part by reducing NASA's budget. This seems counterintuitive.
As Mr Obama reviews NASA, he should consider Hubble's picture of Fomalhaut b and its other major -- and no doubt inspirational -- accomplishments, such as giving us the most precise age of the universe (13.73 billion years). He should give the government's full support to NASA's continued success with this extraordinary piece of modern technology.
With his famous 1961 "Race to the Moon" speech, President Kennedy inspired a generation to study science, saying, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will more impressive to mankind or more important for the long range exploration of space."
In his WKYC interview, Mr Obama mentioned that he grew up with "Star Trek," saying he believes in "the final frontier." He should recall Mr Kennedy's inspirational words -- and perhaps expand his knowledge of astronomy beyond sci-fi television -- before he makes a decision that could draw the frontier's border at Fomalhaut b.
Of that, Ptolemy would surely approve.
The above image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows the newly discovered planet, Fomalhaut b, orbiting its parent star, Fomalhaut. (Credit: NASA, ESA, P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (University of California, Berkeley), M. Clampin (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), M. Fitzgerald (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and K. Stapelfeldt and J. Krist (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory))
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