Fomalhaut
The planetary system Fomalhaut hosts at least one planet. Note that the system is a multiple star system. It hosts at least 3 stellar components.
| System parameters | |
|---|---|
| Primary system name | Fomalhaut |
| Alternative system names | N/A |
| Right ascension | 22 57 39 |
| Declination | -29 37 20 |
| Distance [parsec] | 7.70±0.03 |
| Distance [lightyears] | 25.13±0.09 |
| Number of stars in system | 3 |
| Number of planets in system | 1 |
Image
This false-color composite image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, reveals the orbital motion of the planet Fomalhaut b. The planet will appear to cross a vast belt of debris around the star roughly 20 years from now. If the planet's orbit lies in the same plane with the belt, icy and rocky debris in the belt could crash into the planet's atmosphere and produce various phenomena. The black circle at the center of the image blocks out the light from the bright star, allowing reflected light from the belt and planet to be photographed. Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. Kalas (University of California, Berkeley and SETI Institute).
Architecture of the system
This list shows all planetary and stellar components in the system. It gives a quick overview of the hierarchical architecture.
- Stellar binary
- Stellar binary
Fomalhaut A, stellar object
Fomalhaut b, planet, semi-major axis: 177±68 AU
- Fomalhaut B, stellar object
- Fomalhaut C, stellar object
Planets in the system
This table lists all planets in the system Fomalhaut.
| Fomalhaut b | |
|---|---|
| Alternative planet names | Fomalhaut Ab, HD 216956 b, HR 8728 b, CD-30 19370 b, CPD-30 6685 b, SAO 191524 b, GJ 881 b, 2MASS J22573901-2937193 b, HIP 113368 b, IRAS 22549-2953 b, alf PsA b, 24 PsA b |
| Description | Formalhaut is one of the brightest stars in the night sky and located in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. It is a young star with a debris disk. In 2008 astronomers reported the discovery of a planet orbiting the star within the debris disk. Images from the Hubble space telescope show motion consistent with a Keplerian orbit that crossed the disk. However, there are still debates about where the observed emission is coming from. The object may be an isolated dust cloud or even a background neutron star. |
| Lists | Controversial; Planets in binary systems, S-type |
| Mass [Mjup] | N/A |
| Mass [Mearth] | N/A |
| Radius [Rjup] | N/A |
| Radius [Rearth] | N/A |
| Orbital period [days] | 3.20 ·105 |
| Semi-major axis [AU] | 177±68 |
| Eccentricity | 0.80±0.10 |
| Equilibrium temperature [K] | N/A |
| Discovery method | imaging |
| Discovery year | 2008 |
| Last updated [yy/mm/dd] | 13/05/12 |
Stars in the system
This table lists all stars in the system Fomalhaut.
| Fomalhaut A | Fomalhaut B | Fomalhaut C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alternative star names | HD 216956, HR 8728, CD-30 19370, CPD-30 6685, SAO 191524, GJ 881, 2MASS J22573901-2937193, HIP 113368, IRAS 22549-2953, alf PsA, 24 PsA, WDS J22577-2937 A | TW PsA, TW Piscis Austrini, alf PsA B, HD 216803, HIP 113283, HR 8721, TYC 7505-100-1, GJ 879, CD-32 17321, CPD-32 6550, IRAS 22536-3150, 2MASS J22562403-3133559, WDS J22577-2937 B | LP 876-10, alf PsA C, 2MASS J22480446-2422075, WDS J22577-2937 C |
| Mass [MSun] | 1.92±0.02 | 0.730 | 0.18±0.02 |
| Radius [RSun] | 1.840 | N/A | N/A |
| Age [Gyr] | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Metallicity [Fe/H] | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Temperature [K] | 8590±73 | 4594±80 | 3132±65 |
| Spectral type | A3 V | K4Ve | M4V |
| Visual magnitude | 1.160 | 6.488±0.012 | 13.20±0.02 |
Planet sizes
The following plot shows the approximate sizes of the planets in this system The Solar System planets are shown as a comparison. Note that unless the radius has been determined through a transit observation, this is only an approximation (see Lissauer et al. 2011b).
Habitable zone
The following plot shows the approximate location of the planets in this system with respect to the habitable zone (green) and the size of the star (red). This is only an estimate, using the star's spectral type and mass. Note that if no green band is shown in the plot, then the planet's orbit is far outside the habitable zone. The equations of Selsis, Kasting et al are used to draw the inner and outer boundaries.
Scientific references and contributors
Links to scientific papers and other data sources
This table lists all links which are relevant to this particular system. Note that this is just a summary. More references to the scientific publications and comments can be found in the commit messages. To see these, head over the github or click here to directly go to the git blame output of this system. In the left column of the output you can see the commit message corresponding to each parameter. It also lists the date of the last commit and the person making the changes. Within the commit message, you will find a link to the scientific publication where the data is taken from. Note that this is a new feature and not all system parameters might have a reference associated with it yet. Please help making this catalogue better and contribute data or references!
Open Exoplanet Catalogue contributors
| Contributor | Number of commits | |
|---|---|---|
| Andrew Tribick | ajtribick(at)googlemail.com | 3 |
| Hanno Rein | hanno(at)hanno-rein.de | 9 |
| Marc-Antoine Martinod | marc-antoine.martinod(at)ens-cachan.fr | 1 |
| Ryan Varley | ryanjvarley(at)gmail.com | 2 |
This table lists all people who have contributed to the Open Exoplanet Catalogue. Please consider contributing! Click here to find out how. You can also view all commits contributing to this file on github.
Data download
You can download the xml file corresponding to this planetary system, which is part of the Open Exoplanet Catalogue. All information on this page has been directly generated from this XML file. You can also download the entire catalogue over at github. If you prefer to download the dataset as an ASCII tables, you might find the oec_tables repository useful.
Corrections
If you spot an error or if you can contribute additional data to this entry, please send an e-mail to exoplanet@hanno-rein.de. Please include the corrected xml file and a reference to where the new data is coming from, ideally a scientific paper. If you are fluent with git and github, you can also create a pull request or open an issue on the Open Exoplanet Catalogue repository. Please include the reference to the relevant scientific paper in your commit message.