{"id":39359,"date":"2016-04-21T03:56:27","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T07:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/utnews.utoledo.edu\/?p=39359"},"modified":"2016-04-22T15:30:26","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T19:30:26","slug":"ut-astronomers-student-discover-free-floating-planetary-mass-object-in-family-of-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/04_21_2016\/ut-astronomers-student-discover-free-floating-planetary-mass-object-in-family-of-stars","title":{"rendered":"UT astronomers, student discover free-floating planetary-mass object in family of stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Astronomers at The University of Toledo have identified a new object in space approximately 100 light years away from Earth estimated to be roughly five to 10 times the mass of Jupiter and 10 million years old.<\/p>\n

The free-floating planetary mass object identified by researchers as a brown dwarf is called WISEA J114724.10-204021.3, or just WISEA 1147 for short. A brown dwarf is a lightweight star that lacks enough mass to fuse hydrogen into helium, the process that makes stars like the sun shine.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A young, free-floating world sits alone in space in this illustration from NASA\/Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. The object, called WISEA J114724.10-204021.3, is thought to be an exceptionally low-mass brown dwarf, which is a star that lacks enough mass to burn nuclear fuel and glow.<\/p><\/div>The new object is a member of the TW Hydrae family of stars and is located in the Crater constellation. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe estimate it is one of the youngest and lowest-mass free-floating objects yet discovered in the solar neighborhood, which is within 300 light years,\u201d said Dr. Adam Schneider, UT postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and lead author of the new study to be published in The Astrophysical Journal. \u201cThis is not orbiting a star, so it is not a planet. It likely formed on its own in isolation like stars. We can use this to help us inform our understanding of chemistry and cloud structure of exoplanets, which are planets that orbit stars other than the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to NASA, this discovery provides new clues in a mystery of galactic proportions regarding possibly billions of lonely worlds that sit quietly in the darkness of space without any companion planets or even a host sun. Where do the objects come from? Are they planets that were ejected from solar systems, or are they brown dwarfs?<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>

This map from NASA\/Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology shows the location of the TW Hydrae family of stars where UT astronomers found the lone planetary-mass.<\/p><\/div>\u201cWe are at the beginning of what will become a hot field \u2013 trying to determine the nature of the free-floating population and how many are planets versus brown dwarfs,\u201d said co-author Dr. Davy Kirkpatrick of NASA\u2019s Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.<\/p>\n

UT undergraduate student James Windsor, a sophomore studying astrophysics, is listed as one of the study\u2019s co-authors.<\/p>\n

\u201cJames played a vital role at the outset of the study by identifying WISEA 1147 from a candidate list of several thousand,\u201d said Dr. Mike Cushing, associate professor of astronomy and director of UT\u2019s Ritter Planetarium. \u201cExposing undergraduates to cutting-edge research plays an important role in their education, and I am happy that in this case it resulted in a pretty amazing discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UT<\/a>

UT sophomore James Windsor is an astrophysics major who helped astronomers identify the new object in space.<\/p><\/div>\u201cTo make the discovery and have a student be involved is just awesome,\u201d Schneider said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ability to do research like this as an undergraduate student is one reason I chose to attend UT,\u201d Windsor said. \u201cThis whole experience is mind-blowing. I\u2019m a kid who grew up in the village of Paulding, Ohio, dreaming of becoming an astronomer.”<\/p>\n

For more information, click here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UT researchers have found what they believe to be a lone brown dwarf 100 light years away from Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,1,3,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39359"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39430,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39359\/revisions\/39430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}