Astronomers claim to have discovered a very young brown dwarf, or a failed star, in a tight orbit around a young nearby sun-like star.
An international team, led by University of Hawaii, has made the rare find using the Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager on the eight-metre Gemini-South Telescope in Chile, the Astrophysical Journal Letters reported.
What makes this discovery special is the proximity between the 36 Jupiter-mass brown dwarf companion, dubbed PZ Tel B, and its primary star named PZ Tel A.
They are separated by only 18 Astronomical Units, or AUs, similar to the distance between Uranus and the sun.
In addition to its small separation, the researchers observed PZ Tel B moving quickly outward from its parent star. in 2009. Lead author Beth Biller said: “PZ Tel B travels on a particularly eccentric orbit — in the last 10 years, we have literally watched it careen through its inner solar system. This can best be explained by a highly eccentric, or an oval- shaped, orbit.”
The host star, PZ Tel A, is a younger version of the sun, having a similar mass but a very young age of only 12 million years — about 400 times younger than the sun.