The Coldest Brown Dwarf
Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, WISE
Explanation: This
cosmic snapshot composed with image data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared
Survey Explorer (
WISE) satellite
captures a multitude of faint stars and distant galaxies toward the
constellation Lyra at wavelengths longer than visible light. But the object
circled at the center is not quite a star. Cataloged as WISE 1828+2650, it lies
within 40 light-years of the Sun and is currently the
coldest
brown dwarf known. A brown dwarf begins like a star, with the
gravitational
collapse of a dense cloud of gas and dust, but is not massive enough to
achieve the core temperatures and densities that trigger
hydrogen
fusion, the stable source of a star's energy. Instead the failed star
ultimately cools and emits most of its light at
infrared
wavelengths. Remarkably, brown dwarfs are
roughly
the size of the planet Jupiter. How cold is WISE 1828+2650? While
brown dwarfs
have measured surface temperatures of up to 1,400 degrees C (2,600 degress F),
this brown dwarf ,
assigned to
spectral class Y, has the estimated temperature of a warm room, less than about
27 degrees C (80 degrees F).
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry
Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official:
Phillip Newman Specific rights
apply.
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