* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: SSTB213 J041757

Blobrana · L

Spitzer Telescope Observes Baby Brown Dwarf
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has contributed to the discovery of the youngest brown dwarf ever observed -- a finding that, if confirmed, may solve an astronomical mystery about how these cosmic misfits are formed.
Brown dwarfs are misfits because they fall somewhere between planets and stars in terms of their temperature and mass. They are cooler and more lightweight than stars and more massive (and normally warmer) than planets. This has generated a debate among astronomers: Do brown dwarfs form like planets or like stars?

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Blobrana · L

Title: Searching for proto-brown dwarfs
Authors: M. Morales-Calderon, D. Barrado y Navascues, A. Palau, A. Bayo, I. de Gregorio, C. Eiroa, N. Huelamo, H. Bouy, and O. Morata

We present a multi-wavelength search for cool, very low luminosity objects in the Barnard 213 dark cloud, which is located at 140 parsecs. We have collected data ranging from near infrared at 1.1 5m up to radio wavelengths at 6 cm, including data from the Calar Alto Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope, the Caltech Submillimetre Observatory, the IRAM 30 metre antenna and the Very Large Array. One of our sources has a bolometric temperature of 165 K, whereas the central object seems to have an effective temperature, based on theoretical models, in the range 800-1700 K. The Spitzer photometry and Spectral Energy Distribution allow us to classify it as a Class I object.

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Blobrana · L

The best proto-brown dwarf candidate so far

A recent study has found the best proto-brown dwarf candidate known to date. Calar Alto has contributed key data to this finding.
This object, known as SSTB213 J041757, is placed in the constellation of Taurus, inside the dark cloud Barnard 213, at a distance of 450 light-years (140 parsecs). CAHA imaging has shown that the object is in fact a double object, with both components being compatible with the status of Class I proto-brown dwarfs.
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Twin Brown Dwarfs Wrapped in a Blanket

This image shows two young brown dwarfs, objects that fall somewhere between planets and stars in terms of their temperature and mass. Brown dwarfs are cooler and less massive than stars, never igniting the nuclear fires that power their larger cousins, yet they are more massive (and normally warmer) than planets. When brown dwarfs are born, they heat the nearby gas and dust, which enables powerful infrared telescopes like NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to detect their presence.
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