Artist’s impression of the cold brown dwarf BDR J1750+3809. The blue loops depict the magnetic field lines. Charged particles moving along these lines emit radio waves that LOFAR detected. Some particles eventually reach the poles and generate aurorae similar to the northern lights on Earth. Credit: ASTRON/Danielle Futselaar
For the first time, astronomers have combined observations from a large radio telescope (known as LOFAR) in Europe and two telescopes on Maunakea – the IRTF and Gemini – to discover and investigate a cold brown dwarf, or failed star. This is the first such object to be discovered through radio observations — until now, brown dwarfs have always been uncovered in large infrared and optical surveys. In addition to paving the way for future brown dwarf discoveries, this result illustrates how radio and optical/infrared telescopes can complement each other and paint a more complete picture of the Universe. Astronomers describe science like this, that uses observations in multiple parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, as Multi-Messenger Astronomy.
Read more, in the Gemini Observatory press release.
An artist’s impression of quasar J0313-1806 showing the supermassive black hole and the extremely high velocity wind. The quasar, seen just 670 million years after the Big Bang, is 1000 times more luminous than the Milky Way, and is powered by the earliest known supermassive black hole, which weighs in at more than 1.6 billion times the mass of the Sun. Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva
The asteroid 1998 KY26 (the point of light located at where the two lines would cross) captured by Hyper Suprime-Cam mounted on the Subaru Telescope. The blurring of the background stars is due to the motion of the telescope tracking the asteroid. Five shots, each with a 2-minute exposure time, taken during 2:04–2:16 on December 10, 2020 (Hawaiʻi Standard Time) were stacked to create this image. The field of view is 30 x 15 arcseconds. (Credit: NAOJ)