Companion's Comets the Key to Curious Exoplanet System?

Dec. 18, 2013 — The nearby star Fomalhaut A hosts the most famous planetary system outside our own Solar System, containing both an exoplanet and a spectacular ring of comets. Today, an international team of astronomers announced a new discovery with the Herschel Space Observatory that has made this system even more intriguing; the least massive star of the three in the Fomalhaut system, Fomalhaut C, has now been found to host its own comet belt. The researchers published their results today in a letter to the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Fomalhaut A is one of the brightest stars in the sky. Located 25 light years away in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus, it shines with a blue-white colour and is prominent from the southern hemisphere. From northern latitudes it appears low down in the south during autumn evenings. In contrast, Fomalhaut C, also named LP 876-10, is a dim red dwarf star invisible without a telescope, and was only found to be part of the Fomalhaut system in October this year