Binary Brown Dwarfs

• 24 Oct 2024

Source: TH

Recently, researchers discovered that a brown dwarf Gliese 229B found in 1995 is actually two (binary) brown dwarfs (Gliese 229Ba and 229Bb) orbiting closely around each other while circling a small star. 

• This rare binary brown dwarf is located 19 light-years (1 light year = 9.5 trillion km) away in the constellation Lepus. 
• It orbits a common red dwarf star with a mass about six-tenths that of our sun.  
  • A red dwarf is the smallest, coolest type of star, making up 60-70% of stars in the Milky Way. Its red colour indicates a low temperature. 
• About Brown Dwarf: Brown dwarfs are celestial objects between planets and stars, too small for nuclear fusion but larger than the biggest planets like Jupiter. 
  • They are capable of burning deuterium (a heavy form of hydrogen) but lack the mass to sustain the fusion of regular hydrogen like stars. 

Read More: Star Formation in Dwarf Galaxies