James Webb Space Telescope: Three belts and an explosion cloud around Fomalhaut

The James Webb space telescope has taken the most detailed image of the Fomalhaut star system to date, and three rings of debris have now been detected there. The structures are much more complex than anything we know from the solar system, explains the European Space Agency ESA. At the same time, there are now new indications of exoplanets there. In total, there are three nested belts around the star, which is 25 light-years away, extending a distance of up to 23 billion kilometers. That’s about 150 astronomical units, more than three times the maximum distance of the dwarf planet Pluto from the Sun. A possible remnant of a major collision was also discovered.

Fomalhaut has not only fascinated the astronomy community for years, several telescopes have already taken pictures of the outermost ring of the brightest star in the constellation Southern Fish. So far, however, the inner structures have been hidden, explains the ESA. Only with the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on board the James Webb Space Telescope could they now be resolved. The clearly recognizable gaps between the rings should be indications of exoplanets yet to be discovered in between, says George Rieke of the University of Arizona. “I think it’s not a big step to say that there is a really interesting planetary system around the star,” ESA quoted the MIRI chief scientist as saying.

The image shows the already known outermost ring, which is reminiscent of the Kuiper belt in the solar system. It starts behind Neptune and consists of icy objects. Such belts have also been detected around other stars. Only the JWST can now also image the inner rings around Fomalhaut, which are more reminiscent of the asteroid belt. Meanwhile, in the outermost ring, the space telescope has imaged the “large dust cloud” that could be the result of a collision between two protoplanetary objects. Interestingly, it is a different object than the one first interpreted as an exoplanet years ago.



The whole recording including legend

(Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, A. Pagan (STScI), A. Gáspár (University of Arizona))

The alleged exoplanet, first known as Fomalhaut b, was even given the name “Dagon” in 2015. The object was discovered in 2008 with the Hubble Space Telescope, but disappeared from images from the following years. It is now believed to have been an expanding cloud of small dust particles caused by a gigantic explosion. This probably happened not long before the first image in 2004, two comet-like objects with a diameter of around 200 kilometers each had probably been destroyed. It was actually said that such collisions only occur there every 200,000 years. That must be corrected with the discovery of another such cloud.

The impressive image from the James Webb Space Telescope underscores once again the power of the instrument, which has been collecting scientific data for less than a year. The device, operated by the space agencies NASA, ESA and CSA, was launched on December 25, 2021. After a complex procedure in which it unfolded itself, it arrived at the Lagrange point L2 a month later. Here it looks away from the sun, earth and moon into space so that their thermal radiation does not disturb the infrared telescope. A huge protective screen blocks them. The recording of Fomalhaut is now in a Article in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy presented.

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