In this WISE false-color image, a cold brown dwarf appears green
The Folded Port Infrared Echellette (FIRE) spectrograph, commissioned in March 2010, is contributing to the discovery of some of the coldest and least luminous brown dwarfs found to date. In a paper accepted for publication to the Astrophysical Journal, we report the discovery of five late-type T dwarfs from the WISE survey identified by FIRE.
Posted in brown dwarfs, instrumentation, publications
Tagged brown dwarfs, fire, magellan, near infrared spectroscopy, WISE
A UKIDSS false color image of the Ross 458 system, composed of a pair of M dwarfs (bright star in upper left corner) and the planetary-mass brown dwarf Ross 458C (circled in lower right corner).
To study the atmospheres of young planets outside our Solar System, we need not look far. The first brown dwarf science with the newly-commissioned FIRE spectrograph has revealed the presence of rock clouds in the atmosphere of a planetary-mass companion to the nearby Ross 458 system. The presence of these clouds, and the planetary nature of the source, defy prior expectations.
The source in question is Ross 458C, a brown dwarf candidate identified in the UKIDSS survey in early 2010 by two independent studies led by Drs. Rolf-Dieter Scholz and Betrand Goldman. This source, also known as ULAS J130041.72+122114.7, is located 1.7′ (0.028 degrees) southeast of the Ross 458 system, a pair of magnetically active M dwarfs only 11.2 pc (36.5 light-years) from the Sun. The colors and faintness of Ross 458C, and that fact that it co-moves with the Ross 458 system, led both studies to conclude that it was potentially a very cool and very low-mass brown dwarf companion. However, neither study had the necessary spectral data to probe its atmosphere.
FIRE mounted on Magellan's Baade Telescope
The Folded Port Infrared Echellette was successfully delivered and commissioned at the Magellan Telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Led by MIT Asst. Professor Robert Simcoe and Adam Burgasser, with major contributions by postdoctoral researcher John Bochanski, FIRE is a single-object, near-infrared spectrograph capable of obtaining 0.9-2.5 μm spectroscopy of faint sources at resolutions of 300-10,000. First science results will be published later this year.
Learn more at the FIRE website and on a recent blog post. You can even buy FIRE merchandise!.
April 2010
