New high-resolution images of the Fomalhaut A system from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope show three debris belts extending out to 23 billion km (14 billion miles) from the star. The scale of the outermost belt is roughly twice the scale of our Solar System’s Kuiper belt. The inner belts — which had never been seen before — were revealed by Webb for the first time.
The Fomalhaut star system contains three stars: Fomalhaut A, Fomalhaut B and Fomalhaut C.
The name Fomalhaut derives from the Arabic name for this star — Fum al Hut, meaning ‘the Fish’s Mouth.’
Fomalhaut A, the 18th brightest star visible in night sky, is located about 25 light-years away in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus.
This A-type star has been featured in science fiction novels by writers Isaac Asimov, Stanislaw Lem, Philip K. Dick, and Frank Herbert.
Also known as alpha Piscis Austrini and HD 216956, Fomalhaut A is 440 million years old, or about one-tenth the age of the Solar System.
The star is twice as massive as the Sun and 20 times brighter, and is surrounded by a ring of dust and debris.
“I would describe Fomalhaut A as the archetype of debris disks found elsewhere in our Galaxy, because it has components similar to those we have in our own planetary system,” said Dr. András Gáspár, an astronomer at the University of Arizona.
“By looking at the patterns in these rings, we can actually start to make a little sketch of what a planetary system ought to look like — if we could actually take a deep enough picture to see the suspected planets.”
Dr. Gáspár and colleagues analyzed images taken of the debris system around Fomalhaut A using Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
The images show a previously known outer ring considered analogous to the Kuiper belt, as well as a previously unseen narrow intermediate belt that may be shepherded by the gravitational influence of unseen planets — suggesting the presence of a planet in the gap…
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