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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered stormy weather in the sky of two brown dwarfs in the most detailed weather report yet from the “failed stars.”
The two brown dwarfs form a binary pair known as WISE 1049AB that was discovered by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) in 2013; the duo sits just 6.5 light year away from us. They are the closest brown dwarfs to us Sunthus making an excellent target for the powerful infrared instruments of the James Webb Space Telescope.
A brown dwarf is an object that is not large enough to ignite the flame nuclear fusion of hydrogen to helium in its core and being all inclusive star — but it is considered too massive to be a planet and is thought to form as stars do (by the gravitational collapse of a cloud of molecular gas). Therefore, brown dwarfs are considered a missing link between gas giant planet good Jupiterand the lowest mass stars, M-dwarf.
Previous observations have explored the atmospheres of various brown dwarfs, but they were always limited to time-averaged snapshots, meaning we couldn’t see things in the brown dwarf atmosphere changing over time. However, brown dwarfs are fast rotators — WISE 1049A turns on its axis once every 7 hours, and B once every 5 hours — and can change the conditions in their atmosphere with the passage of time, which means that there are previous observations that were not taken into account in the objects’ evolutions may have lost a lot of diversity.
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JWST, however, has the ability to detect these changes over time. A team led by Beth Biller from the University of Edinburgh observed WISE 1049AB for 8 hours with the JWST Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), and then immediately after for another 7 hours with its Near-Infrared Spectrometer (NIRSpec).
The researchers found that the two brown dwarfs are covered in reddish clouds, probably composed of silicate grains, sweltering in temperatures between 875 degrees Celsius (1,610 degrees F) and 1,026 degrees Celsius (1880 degrees F). In other words, hot sand is being blown in the brown dwarf wind. Absorption signatures of carbon monoxide, methane and water vapor were also identified.
Interestingly, the light curve for each brown dwarf (a graph of the brightness of each brown dwarf over time) shows significant variation. This was manifested as stormy conditions blowing clouds at different heights, with gaps developing between those clouds allowing views into deeper layers of the atmosphere. The light curves also show peaks at specific wavelengths — carbon monoxide at 2.3 microns and 4.2 microns (millionths of a meter), methane at 3.3 microns, and silicate grains tentatively at 8.3 microns to 8.5 microns.
Biller’s team interprets the peaks at these wavelengths as three distinct sets in which the atmospheric pressure on each brown dwarf varies significantly. There is a deep layer that produces signals greater than 2.3 microns but less than 8.5 microns, an intermediate height layer that absorbs light between 2.3 and 4.2 microns, and a high height layer with signals between 4.2 and 8.5 microns displayed.
The results show the power of the JWST to be able to comb the vertical profile (ie the conditions at different depths) of a brown dwarf’s atmosphere for the first time, and, in fact, there is no reason for the JWST. stop there. As he concludes in the research paper describing the results: “This is the first study of its kind, but it will not be the last – in the next observing cycles, JWST will transform our understanding of brown dwarfs and young giants. exoplanet atmosphere.”
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“Our findings show that we are on the verge of revolutionizing our understanding of lives far beyond our own,” Biller said in an app. statement. “Insights like this can help us understand the conditions not only on celestial objects like brown dwarfs, but also on giant exoplanets. Solar system. Finally, we may be able to detect the weather first with the techniques we are refining habitable planets like our own, orbiting other stars.”
The results were published on 15 July Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
