Washington, May 9 (Ians) Astronomers used the powerful James Webb Space Telescope to study Fomalhaut — the first asteroid belt ever seen outside of our solar system in infrared light.
Webb’ Mid-Infrared Instrument (Miri) captured the warm dust around the young star Fomalhaut, and found that the dusty structures are much more complex than the asteroid and Kuiper dust belts of our solar system.
Overall, there are three nested belts extending out to 23 billion km from the Fomalhaut; that’s 150 times the distance of Earth from the Sun.
The scale of the outermost belt is roughly twice the scale of our solar system’s Kuiper Belt of small bodies and cold dust beyond Neptune. The inner belts — which had never been seen before — were revealed by Webb for the first time.
The belts encircle the young hot star, which can be seen with the naked eye as the brightest star in the southern constellation,...
Webb’ Mid-Infrared Instrument (Miri) captured the warm dust around the young star Fomalhaut, and found that the dusty structures are much more complex than the asteroid and Kuiper dust belts of our solar system.
Overall, there are three nested belts extending out to 23 billion km from the Fomalhaut; that’s 150 times the distance of Earth from the Sun.
The scale of the outermost belt is roughly twice the scale of our solar system’s Kuiper Belt of small bodies and cold dust beyond Neptune. The inner belts — which had never been seen before — were revealed by Webb for the first time.
The belts encircle the young hot star, which can be seen with the naked eye as the brightest star in the southern constellation,...
- 5/9/2023
- by Agency News Desk
- GlamSham
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.