Brown dwarfs are failed stars that didn’t have the mass to ignite fusion. But where do you draw the line between a large planet and a failed star? The Gemini observatory has helped discover the coolest brown dwarf ever seen. It’s right in the middle between a star and planet.
The object is called ULAS J0034-00, and it weighs in around 15-30 times the mass of Jupiter. That sounds like a lot, but it’s actually so small that it has the coolest surface temperature ever seen for a brown dwarf: 600-700 degrees Kelvin. It’s only 50 light-years away, much closer than most of the stars you can see with the unaided eye. But it’s so cool, only a powerful observatory can actually see it.
The finding was announced today at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii by an international team of astronomers. Their discovery was first made using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT), and then follow up observations with Gemini Observatory’s Near Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS) on Gemini South.
This discovery opens up the possibility that even lower-mass objects are out there, further blurring the line between high-mass planets and the smallest brown dwarfs.
Original Source: Gemini News Release
Like a performer preparing for their big finale, a distant star is shedding its outer…
For a little over a month now, the Earth has been joined by a new…
Despite decades of study, black holes are still one of the most puzzling objects in…
74 million kilometres is a huge distance from which to observe something. But 74 million…
Astronomers have only been aware of fast radio bursts for about two decades. These are…
How do you weigh one of the largest objects in the entire universe? Very carefully,…