UVA astronomers, with the help of NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), have confirmed the discovery of a new star. According to UVA Today, this star is a cool brown dwarf star. These stars are characterized by a mass so small they are unable to burn hydrogen into helium, which leads them to burn out over time.
Last December WISE was launched into space on a 12-year, $320 million mission. The explorer uses infrared light to photograph images of space, which are color-coded by wavelength. Brown dwarf stars have a green tint, due to the methane in their atmosphere.
"Until now, the coolest brown dwarfs ever found have a temperature of about 450 degrees Fahrenheit, about the temperature of a hot oven; but WISE is hot on the trail of even cooler ones, ‘room temperature’ brown dwarfs," UVA Astronomer Mike Skrutskie told UVA Today.
For this study, UVA astronomers used the infrared camera system at the University’s Fan Mountain Observatory and the Large Binocular Telescope in Mount Graham, AZ, of which UVA owns a share. This is the first confirmed brown dwarf star to be spotted using WISE. The WISE team already has more brown dwarf candidates and expects to find and confirm many more.