News release

From: Springer Nature

Astronomy: JWST reveals new belt around nearby star

High-resolution images of the Fomalhaut debris disk system from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) show a newly discovered asteroid belt, and evidence of a complex and possibly active planetary system, reports a paper in Nature Astronomy.

Fomalhaut, a 440-million-year-old star approximately 25 light years from our Solar System, hosts one of the most prominent known debris disks: dust, pebbles, and other remnants of collisions surrounding a star. Two rings in the Fomalhaut debris disk are considered comparable to the asteroid and Kuiper belts in our Solar System. The sensitivity of JWST has revealed complex features of the belts that had not been seen before.

András Gáspár and colleagues analysed images taken of the debris system around Fomalhaut using the Mid-Infrared Instrument onboard JWST. The images show a previously known outer ring considered analogous to the Kuiper belt, as well as a previously unseen narrow intermediate belt that may be shepherded by the gravitational influence of unseen planets — suggesting the presence of a planet in the gap between the belts. The newly discovered intermediate belt is misaligned relative to the outer belt, and the authors suggest it may have been the origin of a previously known dust cloud generated by a collision. The images also reveal a large dust cloud within the outer ring, which the authors name the ‘Great Dust Cloud’, potentially created by another collision.

The structures of the debris belts, their alignment, and evidence of collision events suggest that Fomalhaut is surrounded by a dynamically active planetary system, the authors conclude.