Research Press Release
Nature Astronomy
August 15, 2023
A brown dwarf orbiting a white dwarf has a surface temperature of approximately 8000 Kelvin (K), which is more than 2000 K higher than that of the Sun, and a temperature difference of approximately 6000 K between the day and night sides. A paper reporting that it is speculated thatNature Astronomywill be published in This brown dwarf may be the most massive brown dwarf known, and these observations may provide insights into binary star systems and planetary atmospheres.
White dwarfs are the final evolutionary stage of low- and intermediate-mass stars like our Sun. WD 0032-317 is a hot, low-mass white dwarf that was observed in the early 2000s and thought to be part of a binary double white dwarf star system. A brown dwarf is an object whose mass lies between that of a star and that of a gas giant. Brown dwarfs are easier to observe directly than giant planets, but their similar atmospheres make them analogous to gas giants.
Na’ama Hallakoun et al. analyzed follow-up observations by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope’s ultraviolet and visible Echelle spectrographs obtained in 2019 and 2020, and found that a brown dwarf (WD 0032- 317 B) is believed to be orbiting WD 0032-317. These analyzes suggest that brown dwarfs are 75 to 88 times more massive than Jupiter and may have been surrounded by a gaseous outer layer common to white dwarfs until about a million years ago. WD 0032-317 has a very high surface temperature of approximately 37,000 K, and the newly identified brown dwarf orbits very close to the white dwarf, which is why it receives intense ultraviolet radiation. , the temperature is more than 2000 K higher than that of the Sun. WD 0032-317 B always faces the same side of the white dwarf. This means that brown dwarfs have a temperature difference of about 6000 K between their day and night sides.
doi:10.1038/s41550-023-02048-z
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