Fomalhaut

Fomalhaut ("mouth of the fish" from the Arabic Fam al-Hut) is the seventeenth brightest star in the sky as seen from Earth. It is a first magnitude, class A star on the main sequence around 25 LY (7.688 parsecs) from Earth. It is part of the faint constellation Piscis Austrinus and as such is also known as Alpha Piscis Austrini (Alpha PsA).

It is believed to by a young star, only 200 million years old. The surface temperature of the star is around 8500° Kelvin, it has a mass of around 2.3 times that of Sol, 15 times the luminosity and is roughly 1.7 times the diameter. It is surrounded by an enormous disk of dust in a torus shape (5 AU to 90 AU), believed to be protoplanetary, and this emits considerable infrared radiation. A planet, designated Fomalhaut b, has been inferred from analysis of the dust cloud in 1998.

Over history there have been a large number of variations on the star's name. It was first identified in pre-history and there is archaeological evidence that it was part of rituals in 2500s BCE Persia.

Right Ascension 22 57 39.05
Declination -29 37 20
Spectral Type A3V
Apparent Magnitude 1.16
B-V Colour 0.09