Fomalhaut

Star type
g A3v

Distance from Earth
g 25.07 ly

Star Service No.
g NA

Age
g NA

Diameter/
Mass/Temp (xSol)
g 171.9%; 230%; NA

Brightness (xSol)
g 175.9%

Metallicity
g NA

Comparison to Sol
g See chart (similar to Sirius)

Picture of star
g See picture

Star system features
g Has young dust disk that is positioned head-on toward Earth. See graphic illustration.

Known planets
g Both the inner and outer edges of the thin, dusty disc have very sharp edges. This suggests the dust particles in the disc are kept within the disc by the gravitational effect of two planets,one closer to the star than the disc and one more distant. The ring’s width is about 16 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth, and is only one-seventh as thick as it is wide. The ring is about 140 times the Sun-Earth distance from the star (Pluto is about 40 times more distant from the Sun than the Earth), so the planets must be very cold.
g Inner planet: Probable size is larger than Mars but no larger than a few times the size of the Earth.
g Outer planet: As with its sister planet, probable size is larger than Mars but no larger than a few times the size of the Earth.
g Fomalhaut b: At outer edge of dusty disc, probably completely shrouded by dust. No more than three times mass of Jupiter, planet is thought to have a Saturn-like ring. Previously thought to be a free-floating dust cloud, the planet's existence is controversial. It follows an oddball orbit of wild extremes between its closest and farthest points from the parent star and appears to cross through a vast minefield of dusty debris, coming within 4.6 billion miles of its star at the closest point in its orbit then swinging way out to a point about 27 billion miles away at the farthest point in a 2,000-year-long orbit

Habitable zone
g 4.194 A.U.s; such a planet would orbit the star once every 5.66327 Earth years. The tidal index in the HZ is 0.031179 with the angular size of star in sky 0.218452 degrees.

Orbital map
g NA

View from star
g TW Piscis Austrini would appear as a magnitude -0.5 star in sky

Nearby stars
(Star systems with 10 light years)
g TW Piscis Austrini: 0.871377 ly (K5e V)
g CD -23°17699: 3.53357 ly (K7 V)
g FK Aquarii: 5.56838 ly
g Luyten 788-34: 6.28752 ly
g GJ 2005: 8.06826 ly
g Luyten 362-81: 8.13867 ly

Map locating star system
g NA

Location in Earth sky
g In constellation Piscis Austrinus

Other names
g Alpha Piscis Austrini; Alpha Psa
g 24 Piscis Austrini
g Gl 881
g HD 216956
g CD -30°19370
g HIC 113368
g SAO 191524
g FK5 867
g HR 8728
g NSV 14372
g LTT 9292

Sci-fi mentions
g Fomalhaut III is planet in short story “The Dead Lady of Clown Town” by Cordwainer Smith; the human nurseries are kept far underground because of chancy radiation and fierce weather
g Fomalhaut is a star system in Joe Haldeman’s novella “The Frontier War"
g In Damon Knight’s “Eripmov,” a planet around this star is home to a race of cellulose vampires

g In Frederik Pohl's "The High Test,' is the home of an alien species with two heads, scales and feathered tails that is supsected of planning an invasion of Cassiopeia 43-G

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