“Planets as low in mass as Neptune are sufficient to carve the inner belts,” the authors write in Nature Astronomy. The three nested belts and the gaps between them suggest that unseen planets are circling Fomalhaut and shaping the star system through their gravitational fields. The scientists identified the new features in images taken by the mid-infrared instrument onboard the James Webb space telescope. It was in this outer ring that the astronomers spotted what they call the great dust cloud, which they suspect was produced when two space rocks more than 400 miles wide slammed into one another. “What we see is the dust produced in collisions between planetesimals, which themselves are the long forgotten remnants of the formation of the planetary system itself,” said András Gáspár, lead author on the study at the University of Arizona.įurther out still from Fomalhaut is an outer ring of debris that resembles the solar system’s Kuiper belt, home to Pluto and the other dwarf planets, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake. Beyond an extensive inner asteroid belt that swirls around the star is a second narrower ring of rock and rubble. Now, high-resolution images from the James Webb space telescope have revealed the star’s surroundings in unprecedented detail. Previous observations by the Hubble space telescope and other instruments showed the 440m-year-old Fomalhaut to be surrounded by dust and debris, but the images gave only a partial picture of the cosmic material circling the young star. Home Isaac Asimov The Stars Like Dust The Stars Like Dust Isaac Asimov Published by Doubleday, 1951 Condition: Fine Hardcover Save for Later From Crowders Fine Books (Atlanta, GA, U.S.A.) AbeBooks Seller Since JSeller Rating Quantity: 1 View all copies of this book Buy Used US 675.
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