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This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Fomalhaut (UK: /ˈfɒməloʊt/, US: /ˈfoʊməlhɔːt/[12]) is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish, and one of the brightest stars in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation Alpha Piscis Austrini, which is an alternative form of α Piscis Austrini, and is abbreviated Alpha PsA or α PsA. This is a class A star on the main sequence approximately 25 light-years (7.7 pc) from the Sun as measured by the Hipparcos astrometry satellite.[13] Since 1943, the spectrum of this star has served as one of the stable anchor points by which other stars are classified.[14]
It is classified as a Vega-like star that emits excess infrared radiation,[15][16] indicating it is surrounded by a circumstellar disk.[17]
Together with the K-type main-sequence star TW Piscis Austrini, and the red dwarf star LP 876-10, Fomalhaut constitutes a triple star system, even though the companions are separated by approximately 8 degrees.[18][19]
Fomalhaut was the first stellar system with an extrasolar planet candidate imaged at visible wavelengths, designated Fomalhaut b. However, analyses in 2019 and 2023 of existing and new observations indicate that Fomalhaut b is not a planet, but rather an expanding region of debris from a massive planetesimal collision.[20][21][16]
α Piscis Austrini, or Alpha Piscis Austrini, is the system's Bayer designation. It also bears the Flamsteed designation of 24 Piscis Austrini. The classical astronomer Ptolemy included it in the constellation of Aquarius, along with the rest of Piscis Austrinus. In the 17th century, Johann Bayer firmly planted it in the primary position of Piscis Austrinus. Following Ptolemy, John Flamsteed in 1725 additionally denoted it 79 Aquarii. The current designation reflects modern consensus on Bayer's decision, that the star belongs in Piscis Austrinus.[22] Under the rules for naming objects in multiple-star systems, the three components – Fomalhaut, TW Piscis Austrini and LP 876-10 – are designated A, B and C, respectively.[23]
The star's traditional name derives from scientific Arabic فم الحوت fam al-ḥūt (al-janūbī) "the mouth of the [Southern] Fish" (literally, "mouth of the whale"), a translation of how Ptolemy labeled it.[24][25][26] Fam in Arabic means "mouth", al "the", and ḥūt "fish"[27] or "whale".[28] In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN)[29] to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016[30] included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN, which included the name "Fomalhaut" for this star.
In July 2014, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) launched NameExoWorlds, a process for giving proper names to certain exoplanets.[31] The process involved public nomination and voting for the new names.[32] In December 2015, the IAU announced "Dagon" as the winning name for Fomalhaut b.[33] The winning name was proposed by Todd Vaccaro and forwarded by the St. Cloud State University Planetarium of St. Cloud, Minnesota, United States of America, to the IAU for consideration.[34] Dagon was a Semitic deity, often represented as half-man, half-fish.[35]
At a declination of −29.6°, Fomalhaut is located south of the celestial equator, and hence is best viewed from the Southern Hemisphere. However, its southerly declination is not as great as that of stars such as Acrux, Alpha Centauri and Canopus, meaning that, unlike them, Fomalhaut is visible from a large part of the Northern Hemisphere as well, being best seen in autumn. Its declination is greater than that of Sirius and similar to that of Antares. At 40°N, Fomalhaut rises above the horizon for eight hours and reaches only 20° above the horizon, while Capella, which rises at approximately the same time, will stay above the horizon for twenty hours. Fomalhaut can be located in northern latitudes by the fact that the western (right-hand) side of the Square of Pegasus points to it. Continuing the line from Beta to Alpha Pegasi towards the southern horizon, Fomalhaut is about 45˚[clarification needed] south of Alpha Pegasi, with no bright stars in between.[37]
Fomalhaut is a young star, for many years thought to be only 100 to 300 million years old, with a potential lifespan of a billion years.[38][39] A 2012 study gave a slightly higher age of 440±40 million years.[7] The surface temperature of the star is around 8,590 K (8,320 °C). Fomalhaut's mass is about 1.92 times that of the Sun, its luminosity is about 16.6 times greater, and its diameter is roughly 1.84 times as large.[7]
Fomalhaut is slightly metal-deficient compared to the Sun, which means it is composed of a smaller percentage of elements other than hydrogen and helium.[8] The metallicity is typically determined by measuring the abundance of iron in the photosphere relative to the abundance of hydrogen. A 1997 spectroscopic study measured a value equal to 93% of the Sun's abundance of iron.[9][nb 1] A second 1997 study deduced a value of 78%, by assuming Fomalhaut has the same metallicity as the neighboring star TW Piscis Austrini, which has since been argued to be a physical companion.[7][40] In 2004, a stellar evolutionary model of Fomalhaut yielded a metallicity of 79%.[8] Finally, in 2008, a spectroscopic measurement gave a significantly lower value of 46%.[10]
Fomalhaut has been claimed to be one of approximately 16 stars belonging to the Castor Moving Group. This is an association of stars which share a common motion through space, and have been claimed to be physically associated. Other members of this group include Castor and Vega. The moving group has an estimated age of 200±100 million years and originated from the same location.[38] More recent work has found that purported members of the Castor Moving Group appear to not only have a wide range of ages, but their velocities are too different to have been possibly associated with one another in the distant past.[18] Hence, "membership" in this dynamical group has no bearing on the age of the Fomalhaut system.[18]
Fomalhaut is surrounded by several debris disks.
The inner disk is a high-carbon small-grain (10–300 nm) ash disk, clustering at 0.1 AU from the star. Next is a disk of larger particles, with inner edge 0.4–1 AU of the star. The innermost disk is unexplained as yet.[17]
The outermost disk is at a radial distance of 133 AU (1.99×1010 km; 1.24×1010 mi), in a toroidal shape with a very sharp inner edge, all inclined 24 degrees from edge-on.[42][43] The dust is distributed in a belt about 25 AU wide. The geometric center of the disk is offset by about 15 AU (2.2×109 km; 1.4×109 mi) from Fomalhaut.[44] The disk is sometimes referred to as "Fomalhaut's Kuiper belt". Fomalhaut's dusty disk is believed to be protoplanetary,[45] and emits considerable infrared radiation. Measurements of Fomalhaut's rotation indicate that the disk is located in the star's equatorial plane, as expected from theories of star and planet formation.[46]
Herschel Space Observatory images of Fomalhaut, analysed in 2012, reveal that a large amount of fluffy micrometer-sized dust is present in the outer dust belt. Because such dust is expected to be blown out of the system by stellar radiation pressure on short timescales, its presence indicates a constant replenishment by collisions of planetesimals. The fluffy morphology of the grains suggests a cometary origin. The collision rate is estimated to be approximately 2000 kilometre-sized comets per day.[47] Observations of this outer dust ring by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array also suggested the possible existence of two planets in the system.[48] If there are additional planets from 4 to 10 AU, they must be under 20 MJ; if from 2.5 outward, then 20 MJ.[49]
On November 13, 2008, astronomers announced an extrasolar planet candidate, orbiting just inside the outer debris ring. This was the first extrasolar orbiting object candidate to be directly imaged in visible light, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.[50][51] The mass of the tentative planet, Fomalhaut b, was estimated to be less than three times the mass of Jupiter, and at least the mass of Neptune. However, M-band images taken from the MMT Observatory put strong limits on the existence of gas giants within 40 AU of the star,[52] and Spitzer Space Telescope imaging suggested that the object Fomalhaut b was more likely to be a dust cloud.[53] A later 2019 synthesis of new and existing direct observations of the object confirmed that it is expanding, losing brightness, has not enough mass to detectably perturb the outer ring while crossing it, and is probably a dispersing cloud of debris from a massive planetesimal collision on a hyperbolic orbit destined to leave the Fomalhaut A system.[20] Further 2022 observations with the James Webb Space Telescope in mid-infrared failed to resolve the object in the 25.5 μm MIRI wideband filter wavelength range, reported by the same team to be consistent with the previous result.[16]
The same 2022 JWST imaging data discovered another apparent feature in the outer disk, dubbed the "Great Dust Cloud".[16] However, another team's analysis, which included other existing data, preferred its interpretation as a coincident background object, not part of the outer ring.[54] Another 2023 study detected 10 point sources around Fomalhaut; all but one of these are background objects, including the "Great Dust Cloud", but the nature of the last is unclear. It may be a background object, or a planetary companion to Fomalhaut.[55]
In December of 2025, another major collision was reported to have occurred in the Fomalhaut system, noted to have resembled Fomalhaut b's collision.[56]
| Companion (in order from star) |
Mass | Semimajor axis (AU) |
Orbital period (days) |
Eccentricity | Inclination (°) |
Radius |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inner hot disk | 0.08–0.11 AU | — | — | |||
| Outer hot disk | 0.21–0.62 AU or 0.88–1.08 AU | — | — | |||
| 10 AU belt | 8–12 AU | — | — | |||
| Interbelt dust disk | 35–133 AU | — | — | |||
| Main belt | 133–158 AU | −66.1° | — | |||
| Main belt outer halo | 158–209 AU | — | — | |||
Fomalhaut forms a binary star with the K4-type star TW Piscis Austrini (TW PsA), which lies 0.28 parsecs (0.91 light-years) away from Fomalhaut, and its space velocity agrees with that of Fomalhaut within 0.1±0.5 km/s, consistent with being a bound companion. A recent age estimate for TW PsA (400±70 million years) agrees very well with the isochronal age for Fomalhaut (450±40 million years), further arguing for the two stars forming a physical binary.[7]
The designation TW Piscis Austrini is astronomical nomenclature for a variable star. Fomalhaut B is a flare star of the type known as a BY Draconis variable. It varies slightly in apparent magnitude, ranging from 6.44 to 6.49 over a 10.3 day period. While smaller than the Sun, it is relatively large for a flare star. Most flare stars are red M-type dwarfs.
In 2019, a team of researchers analyzing the astrometry, radial velocity measurements, and images of Fomalhaut B suggested the existence of a planet orbiting the star with a mass of 1.2+0.7
−0.6 Jupiter masses, and a poorly defined orbital period with an estimate loosely centering around 25 years.[58]
LP 876-10 is also associated with the Fomalhaut system, making it a trinary star. In October 2013, Eric Mamajek and collaborators from the RECONS consortium announced that the previously known high-proper-motion star LP 876-10 had a distance, velocity, and color-magnitude position consistent with being another member of the Fomalhaut system.[18] LP 876-10 was originally catalogued as a high-proper-motion star by Willem Luyten in his 1979 NLTT catalogue; however, a precise trigonometric parallax and radial velocity was only measured quite recently. LP 876-10 is a red dwarf of spectral type M4V, and located even farther from Fomalhaut A than TW PsA—about 5.7° away from Fomalhaut A in the sky, in the neighbouring constellation Aquarius, whereas both Fomalhaut A and TW PsA are located in constellation Piscis Austrinus. Its current separation from Fomalhaut A is about 0.77 parsecs (2.5 light-years), and it is currently located 0.987 parsecs (3.22 light-years) away from TW PsA (Fomalhaut B). LP 876-10 is located well within the tidal radius of the Fomalhaut system, which is 1.9 parsecs (6.2 light-years).[18] Although LP 876-10 is itself catalogued as a binary star in the Washington Double Star Catalog (called "WSI 138"), there was no sign of a close-in stellar companion in the imaging, spectral, or astrometric data in the Mamajek et al. study.[18] In December 2013, Kennedy et al. reported the discovery of a cold dusty debris disk associated with Fomalhaut C, using infrared images from the Herschel Space Observatory. Multiple-star systems hosting multiple debris disks are exceedingly rare.[59]
Fomalhaut has had various names ascribed to it through time, and has been recognized by many cultures of the Northern Hemisphere, including the Arabs, Persians, and Chinese. It marked the solstice in 2500 BC. It was also a marker for the worship of Demeter in Eleusis.[60]
Fomalhaut-Earthwork B, in Mounds State Park near Anderson, Indiana, lines up with the rising of the star Fomalhaut in the fall months, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. In 1980, astronomer Jack Robinson proposed that the rising azimuth of Fomalhaut was marked by cairn placements at both the Bighorn medicine wheel in Wyoming, USA, and the Moose Mountain medicine wheel in Saskatchewan, Canada.[65]
New Scientist magazine termed it the "Great Eye of Sauron", comparing its shape and debris ring to the aforementioned "eye" in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films.[66]
USS Fomalhaut (AK-22) was a United States navy amphibious cargo ship.[67]
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When you next look at Fomalhaut twinkling above the fall leaves, put four fingers together and hold them up against the sky. They'll cover about 8°, or the amount of real estate spanned by the triple system.
Ptolemy [...] generally described stars by their positions in the constellation patterns: but this could get quite cumbersome, such as 'the northernmost of two stars close together over the little shield in the stern.' [...] The jewel in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus [...] is dubbed by Ptolemy as 'the mouth of the southern fish.' In Arabic, this became fam al-hut al-janub – our star Fomalhaut.
Fomalhaut had first visible exoplanet., cites R.H. Allen (1963).[24]
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Fomalhaut (UK: , US: ) is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish, and one of the brightest stars in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation Alpha Piscis Austrini, which is an alternative form of α Piscis Austrini, and is abbreviated Alpha PsA or α PsA. This is a class A star on the main sequence approximately 25 light-years (7.7 pc) from the Sun as measured by the Hipparcos astrometry satellite. Since 1943, the spectrum of this star has served as one of the stable anchor points by which other stars are classified. It is classified as a Vega-like star that emits excess infrared radiation, indicating it is surrounded by a circumstellar disk. Together with the K-type main-sequence star TW Piscis Austrini, and the red dwarf star LP 876-10, Fomalhaut constitutes a triple star system, even though the companions are separated by approximately 8 degrees. Fomalhaut was the first stellar system with an extrasolar planet candidate imaged at visible wavelengths, designated Fomalhaut b. However, analyses in 2019 and 2023 of existing and new observations indicate that Fomalhaut b is not a planet, but rather an expanding region of debris from a massive planetesimal collision.
USS Fomalhaut (AK-22/AKA-5/AE-20) was a Fomalhaut class attack cargo ship named after Fomalhaut, a star in the southern constellation Piscis Austrinus. She served as a commissioned ship for 4 years and 3 months. The ship was launched 25 January 1941 by Pennsylvania Shipyards, Inc., Beaumont, Tex., as Cape Lookout, a Type C1 ship cargo ship. The launch used 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg) of ripe bananas, which the US Maritime Commission found to be an "efficient substitute" for traditional launching grease, and Cape Lookout was the largest vessel at the time ever to be launched using bananas. It was acquired by the Navy 16 May 1941 and commissioned 2 March 1942. She was reclassified AKA-5 in February 1943, but reclassified AK-22 in August 1944 and reclassified AE-20 in December 1948. Fomalhaut arrived at Samoa 8 May 1942 with passengers and cargo from the east coast. On 22 June, she sailed for Wellington, New Zealand, to load cargo from 30 June to 22 July, and after exercises in the Fijis, sortied for the initial landings of Marines on Guadalcanal and Tulagi on 7 August. During this first American land offensive of the war, Fomalhaut lay anchored in such a position as to observe the Battle of Savo Island 9 August, and that day sailed for Noumea to load additional men and supplies for Guadalcanal. Returning to Guadalcanal 23 August, Fomalhaut was ordered to tow the destroyer Blue (DD-387), which had been torpedoed the previous day. But before she could complete unloading and get underway with her tow, an enemy submarine launched a torpedo her way, and Japanese surface forces were reported moving in. As two other destroyers sank Blue to prevent her from possibly falling into enemy hands, Fomalhaut was ordered underway with all but a quarter of her cargo unloaded. Through one year and a half, Fomalhaut carried out continuous cargo operations in the southwest Pacific, going through some of the hottest fighting of the war supporting the many landings and shore campaigns in the battle for Guadalcanal and the other islands of the southern Solomons. Several times she voyaged to ports in New Zealand or Australia to reload general cargo and stores, and she was often used as a transport. Fomalhaut returned to Pearl Harbor 9 April 1944 to prepare for the invasion of the Marianas, and sailed 1 June to land troops and their equipment on Charan Kanoa Beach, Saipan, 16 June, the day after the initial assault. On 23 June, she got underway for Eniwetok, Pearl Harbor, and New York, where she arrived on 15 August for overhaul. After tests and training along the Maine coast, Fomalhaut arrived at Norfolk 7 November 1944 for conversion to an underway ammunition replenishment ship, and in her new role she reported for duty at Ulithi 10 January 1945. Aside from the period 19 to 28 February, when she was at San Pedro Bay, Leyte, arming amphibious ships for future operations, Fomalhaut sailed out of Ulithi to deliver ammunition at sea to combatants and their auxiliaries. On 19 March she returned to San Pedro Bay to load ammunition from merchant ships for ships fighting the battle for Okinawa, off which she arrived 11 May. After a voyage to Saipan, where she touched 2 June, Fomalhaut returned to duty in San Pedro Bay from 7 June to 19 September. She returned to Okinawa and lay there until 7 December when she sailed with homeward bound servicemen for Norfolk, arriving 15 January 1946. Fomalhaut was decommissioned and placed in reserve at Philadelphia on 25 June 1946. She was laid up in 1961 and then sold for scrap on 15 April 1970 to Boston Metals, Baltimore, MD. Fomalhaut received five battle stars for World War II service.
Fomalhaut b, formally named Dagon (), is an expanding dust cloud and former candidate planet observed near the A-type main-sequence star Fomalhaut, approximately 25 light-years away in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus. The object's discovery was initially announced in 2008 and confirmed in 2012 via images taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on the Hubble Space Telescope. Under the working hypothesis that the object was a planet, it was reported in January 2013 that it had a highly elliptical orbit with a period of 1,700 Earth years. The object was one of those selected by the International Astronomical Union as part of NameExoWorlds, their public process for giving proper names to exoplanets. The process involved public nomination and voting for the new name. In December 2015, the IAU announced the winning name was Dagon. The planetary hypothesis has since fallen out of favor; more gathered data suggested a dust or debris cloud is far more likely, and the object was placed on an escape trajectory. In 2023, a team of researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope's MIRI to probe the complex dust environment around the Fomalhaut. They discovered a new intermediate dust belt that might be shepherded by an unseen planet and suggested that the blob, Fomalhaut b, could have originated in this belt. The recent research of the Fomalhaut system used the JWST's NIRCam equipped with coronagraphs to probe the complex dust ring in different wavelengths of infrared light. The absence of detection in certain wavelengths support the idea that Fomalhaut b is not a massive planet but rather a dust cloud resulting from a collision among planetesimals.
Fomalhaut C, also designated LP 876-10, is the distant third star of the Fomalhaut system. It is about five degrees from Fomalhaut, roughly halfway between it and the Helix Nebula on the sky. It is currently 2.5 light-years (0.77 pc) from Fomalhaut (A), and 3.2 light-years away from Fomalhaut B (0.987 pc). The entire system is approximately 25 light-years (7.7 pc) from the Solar System.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Joe Louis.
