Team of astronomers finds widest separation of brown dwarf pair to date

The images of CWISE J0146-0508AB are from the Dark Energy Survey Collaboration. Two distinct entities are visible in the higher-resolution DES image, while the pair are blended into a single point-source in the lower-resolution WISE image. The reddish hue of the objects in the image shows that they emit a lot of their light in theIR, a trait typical of brown dwarfs. Credit: WISE/DES/Softich

A team of astronomy led by Arizona State University undergraduate student Emma Softich has discovered a pair of brown dwarfs that are the widest separation of any brown dwarf system found to date.

Brown dwarfs are smaller than a normal star and without enough mass to sustain nuclear fusion, but they are hot enough to give off energy. The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project is looking for brown dwarfs and low-mass stars with the help of the public.

The team of astronomer looked at images of Backyard Worlds discoveries where companion brown dwarfs may have been overlooked. They discovered a rare brown dwarf system.

"Wide, low-mass systems are usually disrupted early on in their lifetimes, so the fact that this one has survived until now is pretty remarkable," said co-author Adam Schneider.

The lead author, a student at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, looked for evidence of a brown dwarf companion in the thousands of brown dwarfs he studied. The team used data from the Dark Energy Survey to confirm that it was a brown dwarf pair.

The brown dwarfs have two different types of light, L4 and L8, and they are at an estimated distance of about 40 parsecs from Earth.

The widest brown dwarf pair found to date has a separation of around 12 billion miles, three times that of the sun.

Brown dwarf systems are usually very close together because of their small size. It is very exciting to find a pair that is widely separated.

This pair of brown dwarfs is an exceptional find because of the lower force between the pair of dwarfs and the fact that they are more likely to be disrupted over time.

The team hopes that this discovery will allow them to study brown dwarf systems and develop models and procedures that will help in recognizing more of them in the future.

The discovery of a pair of brown dwarfs will present an important test of brown dwarf formation and evolution models.

The American Astronomical Society held a press briefing on the findings. There is a category called " Intriguing Stars & Citizen Discoveries." The research article is titled "CWISE J014611.20-050850.0AB: The Widest Separation Field Brown Dwarf

The Astrophysical Journal has information.

The widest separation of brown dwarf pair to date was found by the team of astronomy.

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