The Webb Telescope Discovers an Asteroid Belt and Indications of Planets in the Proximity of the Prominent ‘Royal Star’ Fomalhaut.

New images published today of bright star Fomalhaut—just 25 light-years away from the solar system—from the James Webb Space Telescope shows that it may be very similar to our solar system.

Published in Nature Astronomy, the new images show two belts around Fomalhaut that could be analogous to the Asteroid Belt and Kuiper belts in our Solar System.

Taking advantage of the stunning sensitivity of JWST, scientists also uncovered evidence of a complex and possibly active planetary system.

Fomalhaut is a 440-million-year-old star approximately 25 light years from the solar system.

Fomalhaut has been known for some time to possesses a disk of pebbles around it that is thought to be the result of collisions. It’s exactly this kind of disk that planets are thought to form from.

Fomalhaut b is an exoplanet discovered in 2008 in Hubble Space Telescope images, the first exoplanet to be discovered that way. It’s about three times the size of Jupiter.

This visible-light image from the Hubble Space Telescope (above) shows a red ring of dust and debris that surrounds —and, orbiting it, the Fomalhaut b. However, Fomalhaut b is three times further from the star than Pluto is from our Sun, making Hubble’s red ring analogous to the Kuiper Belt in the solar system.

The Kuiper Belt is a ring of icy objects around the Sun, extending just beyond the orbit of Neptune from about 30 to 55 Earth-Sun distances, according to NASA.

This new research used JWST’s Mid-Infrared Instrument to reveal not only the previously known red ring, but a previously unseen narrow intermediate belt resembling our Asteroid Belt. The scientists expect that this belt may be being protected by the gravitational influence of unseen planets.

Whether there is a planet/planets in the gap between the belts remains to be seen.

The images also reveal a large dust cloud within the outer ring, which the authors call the “Great Dust Cloud” and which may have been generated by a collision.

Either way, suggest the authors, Fomalhaut is surrounded by a dynamically active planetary system.

Fomalhaut is one of the brightest stars in the night sky and the brightest in the southern constellation of Piscis Austrinus, the “Southern Fish.” It’s visible from the southern hemisphere, but also from equatorial regions of the northern hemisphere.

It’s also known as one of the “Royal Stars” by astrologers, more specifically as the “Watcher of the South.” The opher three “Royal Stars” are Aldebaran in Taurus, Regulus in Leo and Antares in Scorpius.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.

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