Fomalhaut

"NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star. Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away." (NASA) The planet, Fomalhaut b, is 10.7 billion miles from the star--about 10 times the distance that Saturn is from our Sun.

Artist's concept of the star Fomalhaut and the Jupiter-type planet that the Hubble Space Telescope observed. A ring of debris appears to surround Fomalhaut as well. The planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the 200-million-year-old star every 872 years. Credit: ESA, NASA, and L. Calcada (ESO for STScI)

The star Fomalhaut is about 16 times more luminous than our Sun (Fomalhaut mysteriously dimmed by half a magnitude between 2004 and 2006); and is 1.9 times the diameter of our Sun.

Fomalhaut, one of the Four Royal Architects of the Heavens, governs the aquatic quadrant of the heavens. Fomalhaut lies south of the ecliptic by 20° 48' in Pisces Australis (not to be confused with ecliptical Pisces). Its ecliptical longitude resides at about 9° sidereal Aquarius. Conjoining stars are: Enif of Pegaus; Sadalmelik and Sadachbia of Aquarius; and Deneb of Cygnus--all creating this socially mature and very fortuitous longitude of the sidereal zodiak. Fomalhaut embodies all that is altruistic and of the art-sceinces; it is of a future humanitarian-based society, that which nourishes all life.

Even astronomers say "Fomalhaut is the gift that keeps on giving"--due to first discovering a debris disk around Fomalhaut in 2004 (which is similar to the Kuiper Belt that encircles our solar system and that contains many of the newly discovered Dwarf Planets), and now due to the discovery of an orbiting planet (2008).

To learn more of the astrology of Fomalhaut and conjoining stars, you can search for their names using the search tool on the Lunar Planner home page to find where I may have written about them in various Monthly Lunar Planners. To see its location in the heavens, see: Sidereal Heavens Star Chart.

Hubble Press Release