We never knew that the study of science will take us so far that we will discover a new planet which is sun’s neighbor; the scientists have spotted a star which is known as the brown dwarf and is only 100 light years away from the sun. And the sun is only 8 light minutes away from us so anything that happens on the sun reaches us exactly after 8 minutes,
And the sun is only 8 light minutes away from us so anything that happens on the sun reaches us exactly after 8 minutes,
The brown dwarf is found using the new citizen science tools that help the astronomers pinpoint all the new worlds lurking in the outer space of our solar system. This tool is the best to detect the dim moving objects which are able to reveal the failed star brown dwarf which is beyond our solar system. Many people do not even know what a brown dwarf is so before knowing anything about this Sun’s neighbor one has to know what a brown dwarf is.
What is a brown dwarf ?
For someone to understand the concept of brown dwarf they have to understand the difference between the star and a planet, the planets shine using the reflected light however the stars shine using their own light. And brown dwarfs are nothing but the objects which have a size between the planet like Jupiter and star both, brown dwarfs came into existence ever since 1995 when the scientists helped to spot some of them, and all of the dwarfs found were solely found in the binary system.
These brown dwarfs are spread all over the Milky Way the same place where our solar system dwells. However these brown dwarfs lack enough mass which will help them to sustain in the nuclear fusion and they are not also hot enough to glow in the infrared range of the light spectrum.
In the month of February several institutions which also includes the American Museum of Natural History AMNH, had launched a Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 website which will help to search the dubbed object of the Planet 9, although this thing is not yet confirmed but according to the scientists the planet 9 is exerting a gravitational influence in the solar system.
After just sometime of the website being debuted the science teacher of Tasmania flagged a very faint object which was moving across the WISE images, later not only him but also the other people and participants from Russia, Serbia and also the United States noted down this interesting object. Their keen observation has opened the doors to many inventions and discoveries by the astronomers.
Long after this interesting object was found by them it was named as the Bob’s Dwarf, Faherty took help of a NASA’s infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii which helped them to confirm that this interesting object was nothing but a previously seen brown dwarf which is placed at about 110 light years away from our solar system.
There are thousands of dwarf stars and most of them are red and they are so dim in light and cold that they are too difficult to be spotted with the eye alone.
The unique part of these brown dwarfs are that though they are dim in light they do have a light but they cannot sustain nuclear fusion at their core which is the requirement of stars.
However the real planets do not emit any light and the only light that is emitted by them is at their time of birth.
Understanding these brown dwarfs and their characteristics the scientist will be able to find the answers about the gas giants which are beyond the solar system.
A backyard world’s team member named Jonathan Gagne said that the brown dwarfs are strikingly similar to the planet Jupiter so after studying their weather and other characteristics the scientists can know more about other planets as well.
In the mean time of spotting this brown dwarf and knowing more about it the researchers of the Backyard Worlds team will be continuing to hunt the unseen planet 9.
According to Faherty one of the researchers there is a strong possibility that there is a cold world which is closer than what we believe to be the closest star to the sun.
And even according to the Professor Ian Mclean of the University of California that if the number of the brown dwarfs exists then there are chances that these could make a small but a very significant contribution to the dark matter, which is the so called missing mass in the universe.
Launching the website and turning to the general public for help the astronomers has received a great help, the citizen scientists are helping to characterize the distant galaxies and also discovered the gravitation lenses.
The prediction of the existence of these brown dwarfs was however made around 50 years ago but there was no confirmation of them being real until they traced down a proof in the year 1995.
These dwarfs are relatively closer to the sun being its neighbor and they can even move against a background of stationary stars.
After this discovery it turns out no matter how tiny the object is the human eye is capable enough to spot anything that is moving against the crowded background.
Now the real questions that the researchers are finding is that how many brown dwarfs exists, how many are close to us and how huge they are.
Well these brown dwarfs have opened doors to many possibilities and have helped the researchers to discover a whole new thing.
According to some researchers we can even reach closer to finding more about the missing mass in the universe.
These cold brown dwarfs are one of the best discoveries of the general scientists who are 100 light years away and the astronomers are very proud of their keen observation after the launch of the website.