Tag Archive for 'Brown dwarf'

Schematic of the Wolf 1130ABC triple system, composed of the red dwarf star Wolf 1130A (left), its close and compact white dwarf companion Wolf 1130B (center), and the distant brown dwarf Wolf 1130C (right); the three components of this system are shown scaled to their relative sizes. Image credit: Adam Burgasser.

Webb Detects Biosignature Gas Phosphine in Atmosphere of Ancient Brown Dwarf

Oct 2, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected phosphine (PH3) in the atmosphere of Wolf 1130C, a metal-poor brown dwarf within...

An artist’s impression of aurora on the brown dwarf SIMP-0136. Image credit: Evert Nasedkin.

Webb Detects Aurora on Free-Floating Brown Dwarf

Sep 30, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have found evidence for the deposition of energy into the upper atmosphere of the nearby...

This artist’s illustration shows a brown dwarf that hosts an atmosphere filled with gas and dust clouds. Image credit: NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / R. Proctor.

Astronomers Find Elusive Cloud-Forming Chemical on 10-Billion-Year-Old Brown Dwarf

Sep 9, 2025 by News Staff

Using data gathered by NSF’s Gemini South telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected signatures of methane...

An artist’s impression of the UPM J1040-3551 system against the backdrop of the Milky Way as observed by ESA’s Gaia satellite; on the left, UPM J1040-3551 Aa & Ab appears as a distant bright orange dot, with an inset revealing these two M-type stars in orbit; on the right, in the foreground, a pair of cold brown dwarfs -- UPM J1040-3551 Ba & Bb -- orbit each other for a period of decades while collectively circling UPM J1040-3551 Aab in a vast orbit that takes over 100,000 years to complete. Image credit: Jiaxin Zhong / Zenghua Zhang.

Astronomers Discover Extremely Rare Hierarchical Quadruple System

Aug 19, 2025 by News Staff

Named UPM J1040-3551 AabBab, the newly-discovered quadruple star system consists of a pair of cold brown dwarfs and a pair of young red dwarfs. An artist’s...

This image shows a possible substellar companion orbiting the young star V960 Mon. The candidate object was found with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), using its new Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS). The new ERIS data are shown here in orange, overlaid on older images of the dusty disk as seen with the VLT’s SPHERE instrument (yellow) and ALMA (blue). Image credit: ESO / A. Dasgupta / ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Weber et al.

VLT Spots Protoplanet and Substellar Object Candidates around Young Stars

Jul 22, 2025 by News Staff

Using the Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), two teams of astronomers have detected a...

An AI impression of a dark dwarf. Image credit: Gemini AI.

Dark Dwarfs May Reveal True Nature of Dark Matter

Jul 8, 2025 by News Staff

Dark dwarfs are hypothetical dark matter-powered objects that formed from the cooling of brown dwarfs, according to a team of astronomers from Durham University,...

This illustration shows an exoplanet orbiting around two brown dwarfs. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

Astronomers Discover Polar Circumbinary Exoplanet around Pair of Brown Dwarfs

Apr 23, 2025 by News Staff

The newly-discovered planet orbits at an angle of 90 degrees around 2MASS J15104786-2818174 (hereafter 2M1510), an eclipsing binary composed of two equal-mass...

This collage of images from the Flame Nebula shows a near-infrared light view from Hubble on the left, while the two insets at the right show the near-infrared view taken by Webb. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / M. Meyer, University of Michigan / A. Pagan, STScI.

Webb Focuses on Flame Nebula’s Brown Dwarfs

Mar 11, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have explored the lowest mass limit of brown dwarfs within the Flame Nebula, a hotbed of...

An artist’s impression of SIMP 0136. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / J. Olmsted, STScI.

Multiple Cloud Layers, Hot Spots and Changing Chemistry are Present in Extrasolar Worlds: Study

Mar 3, 2025 by News Staff

New observations from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope support the presence of three specific features — clouds, hot spots, and changing...

An artist’s impression of the super-Jupiter exoplanet Gaia-4b. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC / M. Marcussen.

Gaia Discovers Massive Exoplanet and Brown Dwarf around Nearby Low-Mass Stars

Feb 5, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using ESA’s Gaia star-mapping satellite have discovered two substellar companions — named Gaia-4b and Gaia-5b — orbiting two...

This image of NGC 602 includes data from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-InfraRed Camera) and MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument) instruments. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / P. Zeidler / E. Sabbi / A. Nota / M. Zamani, ESA & Webb.

Webb Detects First Rich Population of Brown Dwarf Candidates outside Milky Way Galaxy

Oct 28, 2024 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected a population of 64 brown dwarf candidates with masses ranging from 50 to 84...

This artwork highlights a pair of brown dwarfs, named Gliese 229 Ba and Gliese 229 Bb. Image credit: K. Miller / R. Hurt / Caltech / IPAC.

Gliese 229B is Actually Compact Pair of Brown Dwarfs, Astronomers Find

Oct 17, 2024 by News Staff

Gliese 229B was the first known brown dwarf, discovered in 1995. In new research, astronomers observed Gliese 229 B with the GRAVITY interferometer...

An artist’s impression of an Earth-like planet in an orbit around a white dwarf. Image credit: Adam Makarenko.

Earth-Mass Exoplanet Found Orbiting Distant White Dwarf

Sep 26, 2024 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Keck II 10-m telescope have discovered evidence for an Earth-mass planet and a brown dwarf orbiting a white dwarf star. The planet...

At an estimated mass of 5 Jupiter masses, NIRISS-NGC1333-5 (also known as NN5) is a good candidate to be the lowest-mass object found in NGC 1333 thus far and the lowest-mass object with a disk in any region identified to date. Image credit: Langeveld et al., doi: 10.3847/1538-3881/ad6f0c.

Webb Discovers Six Free-Floating Exoplanets in NGC 1333

Aug 27, 2024 by News Staff

Using the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered...

An artist’s impression of the brown dwarf W1935. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / L. Hustak, STScI.

Webb Detects Methane Emission from Cool Brown Dwarf

Apr 17, 2024 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected methane emission from CWISEP J193518.59-154620.3 (W1935 for short), an isolated...

Webb Detects Auroral Signature in Extremely Cold Brown Dwarf

Jan 9, 2024 by News Staff

Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected a brown dwarf with infrared emission from methane, likely due to energy in...

This image from Webb’s NIRCam instrument shows the central portion of the star cluster IC 348. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / K. Luhman, Penn State University / C. Alves de Oliveira, ESA.

Webb Finds Small Free-Floating Brown Dwarf in Star-Forming Cluster IC 348

Dec 13, 2023 by Natali Anderson

The newly-discovered brown dwarf has an estimated mass of 3-4 Jupiter masses, making it a strong contender for the least massive free-floating brown dwarf...

This image from ESA’s Euclid spacecraft shows the Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33, a giant star-forming region located 1,375 light-years away in the constellation of Orion. Image credit: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA / J.-C. Cuillandre, CEA Paris-Saclay / G. Anselmi / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Euclid Captures Spectacular Image of Horsehead Nebula

Nov 9, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The Euclid team has released a spectacularly panoramic and detailed image of the Horsehead nebula. This image from ESA’s Euclid spacecraft shows the...

Astronomers thought HIP 81208 was a system consisting of a massive central star (A, the central bright spot), a brown dwarf (B) circling around it, and a low-mass star (C) orbiting further away. However, Chomez et al. revealed an object (Cb), approximately 15 times more massive than Jupiter, orbiting around the smaller of the two stars (C). Image credit: ESO / Chomez et al.

Astronomers Directly Image Rare Hierarchical Quadruple System

Sep 19, 2023 by Natali Anderson

HIP 81208 is the first binary stellar system with substellar companions around each stellar component ever found by direct imaging. Astronomers thought...

Hallakoun et al. report observations revealing an extremely irradiated low-mass companion to the hot white dwarf WD 0032-317. Image credit: NASA / ESA / G. Bacon, STScI.

Newly-Discovered Brown Dwarf is Hotter than the Sun

Aug 15, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

WD 0032-317B, a brown dwarf orbiting around the hot, low-mass white dwarf WD 0032-317, is estimated to have a surface temperature of about 8,000 K and...

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