Faint 'super-planet' discovered by radio telescope for the 1st time
By Samantha Mathewson - Space.com Contributor 19 hours ago
There are more to come.
An artist's impression of the new brown dwarf BDR J1750+3809, or "Elegast." This faint, cold celestial
body was detected using radio telescope observations for the first time.
(Image: © ASTRON/Danielle Futselaar)
Scientists have discovered a cold, faint "super-planet" that has remained elusive to traditional infrared survey methods.
Observations from the Low-Frequency Array, or LOFAR radio telescope, revealed a brown dwarf, which researchers have designated BDR J1750+3809 and nicknamed Elegast. Brown dwarfs are sometimes referred to as failed stars or super-planets because they are too small to be considered stars, yet too big to be considered planets.
Generally, brown dwarfs are discovered by infrared sky surveys. Elegast, however, represents the first substellar object to be detected using a radio telescope, according to a statement from the University of Hawai'i.
"This work opens a whole new method to finding the coldest objects floating in the sun's vicinity, which would otherwise be too faint to discover with the methods used for the past 25 years," Michael Liu, coauthor of the study and researcher from the the University of Hawai'i Institute for Astronomy, said in the statement.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/super-planet-found-using-radio-telescopes.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
... seeing "the sun," I assume this is in our solar system. Would love to know how far out Elegast is and how many are "More to come." And, it emits light! Wonder what it's made of... gas?
