Other Planets Orbiting Fomalhaut
Fomalhaut b is orbiting its host star at a wide separation, where forming massive planets is difficult. To explain its current location, Fomalhaut b could have been dynamically scattered by a more massive, unseen body located at smaller separations. Several ground-based observations have searched for this hypothetical Fomalhaut “c” but have yet to find it, although they have limited the mass of such an object to be less than thirteen times the mass of Jupiter. Instead, Fomalhaut b could have formed in situ if it coalesced from small pebble-sized objects that rapidly formed into a protoplanetary core which in turn accreted a gaseous envelope.
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