Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the lightest brown dwarf yet: a quasi-hidden sun. The lightest border crossing between star and planet so far, which the researchers call a sub-brown dwarf (there is no German name yet, mind you). Two other brown dwarfs also have a mysterious spectral signature.
With a mass ‘only’ three or four times that of Jupiter, the brown dwarf specimen is by far the lightest of its kind, the scientists report. It was found in a star cluster called IC348, which is located – about 1,000 light-years away – in the constellation Perseus and is only about five million years old – and therefore relatively young from an astronomical perspective.
“Least mass of free-floating brown dwarf”
Using “Webb’s” NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectograph) spectrometer, a team led by Kevin Luhman of Pennsylvania State University was able to identify three infrared light points as brown dwarfs. “The object with the weakest signal (marked 3 in the image below, note) could be the lowest-mass brown dwarf floating freely in space as we know so far,” the astronomers report.
The brown dwarf is barely hotter than 850 degrees Celsius, making it probably the smallest and lightest cross between a planet and a sun. Until now, it was assumed that a brown dwarf should have at least the mass of 13 Jupiters. That is why astronomers call the celestial body that has now been discovered a Subbrown Dwarf.
Evidence of mysterious hydrocarbon
The researchers also found evidence of mysterious carbon in two other brown dwarfs. “In the solar system, this spectral signature has so far only been observed in the atmosphere of Saturn and Saturn’s moon Titan,” the astronomers report. However, it does not correspond to methane, ethylene or other known hydrocarbons and “must therefore come from an as yet unidentified aliphatic hydrocarbon,” the researchers report on the ESA website.
Hidden, relatively cold suns
Brown dwarfs are astronomical objects that occupy a special position among planets and stars. Like stars, they form in clouds of dust and gas, but their mass does not condense to the extent that – as with the Sun – thermonuclear ignition occurs in their core. That is why they are called failed suns.
Brown dwarfs remain relatively “cold” and therefore only glow in red and brown hues and only faintly shimmer in the (infrared) light from the heat released during their formation. Brown dwarfs are difficult to detect in space, which is why the first representatives were only discovered in 1995.
Source: Krone
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