Whether there is an asteroid belt and a planetary system around the “royal star” Web photography pictures refer to the official Forbes Japan website (Forbes Japan)

A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) of Fomalhaut, a bright star just 25 light-years from our solar system, shows that the star has an asteroid belt and a planetary system very similar to our own, and the possibilities have been presented.

Fomalhaut is a star born 440 million years ago. It is one of the brightest stars in the night sky and the brightest star in the southern constellation Piscis Austrinus. They can be seen not only in the southern hemisphere, but also from the equatorial belt of the northern hemisphere.

One of the four stars in astrology is called the Royal Stars, and is also known as the Southern Watcher. The remaining “three royal stars” are Aldebaran in Taurus, Regulus in Leo, and Antares in Scorpio.

In the scientific journal Nature Astronomy on the eighth dayPublishThe most recent images released show two belts surrounding the whale’s mouth. These belts may resemble the asteroid belt of the solar system and the Kuiper belt.

The team also found evidence of a complex and potentially active planetary system in observations with the highly sensitive JWST.

Fomalhaut has long been known to have a disk of small rocks surrounding it, and was thought to have formed as a result of a collision between celestial bodies. These disks are thought to be the places where planets form.

In 2008, Hubble Space Telescope images of Fomalhaut revealed the planet Fomalhaut b.exploredone. This is the first time an exoplanet has been found in this way. Fomalhaut b is about three times the size of Jupiter.

This visible-light image taken by Hubble shows the newly discovered exoplanet Fomalhaut b orbiting its central star (NASA, ESA, P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (University of California, Berkeley) and M. Clampin (Center). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD), M Fitzgerald (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA), Kay Stablefeldt and J. Crest (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA))

Visible light images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope show a reddish ring of dust and debris surrounding and orbiting Fomalhaut b. The distance from Fomalhaut b’s central star is three times the distance between Pluto and the Sun, making the Hubble red ring image the equivalent of the Kuiper Belt in our solar system.

The Kuiper Belt is a ring of small icy objects that orbit the sun.NASAIt extends beyond the orbit of Neptune and is about 30 to 55 times farther from the Sun than Earth.

In this observation, the team used the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) mid-infrared instrument to see this long-known red ring, as well as a narrow, asteroid-belt-like intermediate site in our solar system. New belt found. The researchers believe that the belt may be gravitationally shielded by planets not visible in the image.

It is not yet known if there are planets between the two belts.

The researchers also found a large dust cloud in the outer ring in the image series. The team called it the Great Dust Cloud and believes it may have been caused by a collision.

In any case, the researchers believe that Fomalhaut may be surrounded by a very active planetary system.

（Original forbes.com）