Fomalhaut, a bright star located about 25 light years away from Earth, has long been a source of fascination for astronomers. Recently, a group of scientists, primarily from the University of Arizona and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, published a study in the journal Nature Astronomy revealing that the Fomalhaut system is more complex than previously thought, thanks to new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope.
Read: Snapchat avails its AI chatbot to all users
Since 1983, astronomers have known that Fomalhaut is surrounded by dust and debris. However, the new study found three different debris fields surrounding the star. The closest to Fomalhaut is an inner asteroid belt that stretches from about seven astronomical units to about 80 astronomical units, which is ten times broader than astronomers expected to find. Beyond this inner asteroid belt, there is a second debris belt that is tilted at 23 degrees from everything else in orbit around the star. This tilted belt could be a result of planets in orbit around Fomalhaut that astronomers have yet to discover.
Further from Fomalhaut is an outer debris ring similar to our solar system’s Kuiper belt. The outer debris ring includes a feature known as the Great Dust Cloud, which may have been formed when two space rocks more than 400 miles wide collided with one another. The researchers suspect that there may be three or more planetoids orbiting Fomalhaut that are about the size of Uranus and Neptune.
The study’s lead author, András Gáspár, called the tilted debris belt “a truly unique aspect of the system.” He also noted that the debris belts around Fomalhaut are “kind of a mystery novel: Where are the planets?” Astronomer George Rieke added that the existence of the debris belts suggests “there’s probably a really interesting planetary system around the star.”
The researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope to study the Fomalhaut system, which allowed them to see through the dust and debris to reveal the system’s hidden complexity. They are now analysing JWST images to determine whether there are more planetoids in the system.
