Fomalhaut was home to the Kha'Miir, the first race with whom the Kentaurans established first contact circa 1750 BCE. The contact came through conflict, however, as Kha'Miir ships fired upon the Kentauran vessels with no warning. The Republic of Kentaurus subsequently declared war and, four years later, forced an unconditional surrender from the Kha'Miir.
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Gold-brown material surrounds Fomalhaut and its largest planet, Fomalhaut b.
Credit: ESA; NASA; and L. Calcada (ESO for STScI)
The Kha'Miir remained a protectorate of the Kentauran Republic for approximately 250 years until the Na'Tari wiped out the Kha'Miir homeworld. Terran archaeologists set up a camp on the now-barren world in 2137 but abandoned it in 2145 after tensions with the Ceti erupted into full-scale war. One mystery that still eludes Terran scientists is how intelligent life developed in a star system approximately 250 million years old: a popular hypothesis is that Fomalhaut was not the Kha'Miir home system but a colony, and the true Kha'Miir homeworld lies in an unexplored region of space.
Fomalhaut is an A-class white star about twice as massive as Sol and is approximately 25 light-years from Earth. It has three terrestrial planets and one large gas giant named Fomalhaut b, which was first observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2008. Two of Fomalhaut's three inner planets orbit within its habitable zone, where conditions are optimal for life to develop. The star's expected lifespan is approximately 1 billion years.