In the 1980s, astronomers first noticed the excessive infrared radiation of Femalhut.
What do we see in today’s NASA image?
Fomalhaut is a bright star 25 light years away from Earth. This star is located in the southern constellation Pisces. In the 1980s, astronomers first noticed the excessive infrared radiation of Femalhut. According to the data of space and ground telescopes during these years, the source of infrared radiation of this dusty disk is caused by the formation of a growing planetary system around the hot and young star Fam Alhut.
But this infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI camera shows never-before-seen details of the Femalhut subdisc. Including a large dust cloud in the outer ring, which is a possible sign of collisions, and a dust disk and inner gap, which is probably created by hidden planets hidden from view.
In the lower left corner of the image, a linear scale in astronomical units or au (the distance from the Earth to the Sun) is shown. The distance of the outer dust ring of the pro-star Fam Alhut is twice that of the Kuiper belt of our own solar system. The Kuiper Belt consists of small icy bodies and debris and is located far beyond the orbit of Neptune.
