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Fomalhaut b was identified as an exoplanet in 2008 after reviewing images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in 2004 and 2006. As such, it was one of the first to be discovered using the direct imaging method. It is approximately 25 light years away in the constellation Pisces Austrinus. Its host star, Fomalhaut, is a Type A main sequence star.
It also turns out that Fomalhaut b was the product of our imagination.
Originally intended to be a massive planet (up to three times the size of Jupiter), with a circumplanetary disk of dust and debris, subsequent observations in 2014 by the HST were unable to fully locate the planet. Apparently it has vanished before our very eyes.
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A study recently published in the procedures of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) claims that the planet is actually radioactive gas and debris resulting from a massive planetesimal collision between two asteroid-sized bodies (~ 200 km in diameter) that occurred around 2004.
The data seems to corroborate this conclusion. Although Fomalhaut b is optically bright, it cannot register in the infrared, unlike other exoplanets. This fact is especially inconsistent with the relatively young age of the planet (~ 440 million years old). Furthermore, despite the planet’s orbit crossing the debris ring of its host star, none of the expected gravitational disturbances could be detected. Computer modeling of the dust cloud produced results that were consistent with the observations.
Hopefully, the true nature of Fomalhaut b can be resolved shortly with the upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2021.
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