(ORDO NEWS) — Using NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers observed the nearby brown dwarf HD 19467 B.
The results of the observational campaign provide important information about the properties of this substellar object.
Brown dwarfs are intermediate objects between planets and stars. Astronomers generally agree that these are substellar objects with a mass range of 13 to 80 Jupiter masses.
Class T brown dwarfs have effective temperatures between 500 and 1500 K. They are the coldest and least luminous substellar objects discovered to date.
Research on T-dwarfs could help astronomers better understand objects near the disputed planet/star boundary.
However, while many brown dwarfs have been discovered to date, T dwarfs are not as common. Only about 400 such objects have been identified.
HD 19467 B is about 100 light-years from Earth. The surface temperature of this T-dwarf is about 1000 K. It orbits HD 19467, a G3V solar-like star.
Its age is estimated from 5.4 to 12 billion years. It has been measured that the effective temperature of the star is approximately 5750 K.
A team of astronomers led by Alexandra Z. Greenbaum of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) used the JWST to perform mid-to-narrow-band imaging and photometry of HD 19467 and its companion, hoping to uncover the brown dwarf’s fundamental parameters.
The study was complemented by data obtained from the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).
The results show that the parent star is about 9.4 billion years old. HD 19467 has a radius of about 1.2 solar radii, while its mass is estimated at about 0.96 solar masses.
According to the study, the dynamical mass of the brown dwarf is 81 Jupiter masses, while its model mass has been estimated at 62 Jupiter masses.
The researchers noted that HD 19467 B’s radius has been estimated at 0.62 Jupiter radii and its surface temperature is approximately 10,800 K.
Greenbaum’s team plans further observations of JWST HD 19467 B later this year. The main goal of astronomers is to characterize the atmosphere of this brown dwarf.
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