Additional evidence that Fomalhaut b might be a non-exoplanet

ABSTRACT Fomalhaut b is an extrasolar object that was imaged directly in 2008. Its status since has changed from exoplanet – including super-Earth and low-mass candidates – to neutron star to dust cloud, generating contention, controversy, and confusion. We contribute to the discussion by reporting additional evidence that, given a set containing celestial objects classified as exoplanets, Fomalhaut b might be a non-member. We conducted a principal component (PC) analysis on a data set containing 425 extrasolar objects and 7 variables and found a single isolated point in PC space representing Fomalhaut b. Whatever its existential status, Fomalhaut b is characterized by properties very different from those characterizing exoplanets.