Fomalhaut is about 25 light years from Earth, roughly 440 million years old and about 16 times more luminous than the Sun. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope first showed a bright point near a dusty belt in images from 2004 and 2006. That point was reported as a possible planet in 2008 and called Fomalhaut b.
Later HST images in 2010, 2012 and 2013 showed motion that curved away from the star, matching small dust particles pushed by starlight rather than a planet. In 2023 researchers obtained a new HST image that revealed another bright spot now called Fomalhaut cs2.
An international team concluded both bright points are light from expanding dust clouds produced by collisions of planetesimals (small bodies). The team will track the cloud with the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam and with HST over the next three years.
Difficult words
- observation — information gained by watching or measuring somethingObservations
- luminous — giving off or reflecting a lot of light
- dusty — covered with small particles of dust
- planetesimal — a small solid body that orbits in spaceplanetesimals
- collision — when two objects crash into each othercollisions
- expand — to become larger in size or amountexpanding
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Discussion questions
- Why might scientists at first report a bright point as a possible planet?
- Would you like to look at images from a space telescope? Why or why not?
- How can collisions in space create dust clouds, in your own words?
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