The Cosmos is occupied with several mysterious objects that have made astronomers rethink the origin of our universe. The Milky Way Galaxy is filled with strange cosmic objects including the newly discovered brown dwarf planet that appears hotter than the sun. This scorching object looks like a planet and was discovered about 1,400 light years away from Earth.
What Scientists Learned From This Latest Astronomical Discovery about the hottest brown dwarf
The newly discovered brown dwarf, WD0032-317B, is located about 1,400 light-years away from our home planet. Researchers led a team of scientists that conducted observations for this discovery from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Astronomers have previously discovered brown dwarfs as stellar objects that range between the size of a massive planet such as Jupiter and a small-sized star.
The mass of WD0032-317B is estimated to fall between 75 to 88 Jupiter. Scientists spotted the brown dwarf orbit around its host star at a closer approach its scorching temperature greatly surpasses the temperature of our Sun. Live Science wrote that the planet has a 2.3-hour orbital period as it circles its parent star, WD0032-317. The host star, WD0032-317 was discovered as a low-mass white dwarf with about 40 percent mass of our Sun.
However, despite having about 40 percent of our Solar mass, the white dwarf is still hotter with its scorching temperatures exceeding 37,000 Kelvin. Our Sun has a surface temperature of about 5,778 K (5,504 degrees Celsius). This implies that WD0032-317 is hotter than our Sun by a great margin when compared together.
The brown dwarf inherited its scorching temperature of about 8,000 K (7,727 degrees Celsius) because of its proximity to its host star. WD0032-317B temperature is discovered to be higher than that of other found brown dwarfs. The brown dwarf’s temperature is scorching enough to make any atmospheric molecules break into their constituent atoms.
Other Fascinating Features of the Brown Dwarf
Astronomers discovered the brown dwarf to be tidally locked to its host star. This implies that only one side of the planet is always facing its parent star. However, the other side never experiences the scorching nature of WD0032-317. The temperature of one side of the planet facing the sun varies from 7,250 to 9,800 K (6,976 to 9,526 degrees Celsius) while the side facing away experiences lower temperatures ranging from 1,300 to 3,000 K.
The scientists that conducted the study noted that the brown dwarf hot side temperatures are nearly 5,100 K (4,826 degrees Celsius) hotter than any discovered large exoplanet. This implies that WD0032-317B is the hottest known brown dwarf planet until lately. Astronomers previously discovered WD0032-317 in early 2000 with the aid of the data obtained from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope.
However, the discovery is helping scientists learn how high-scorching stars impact their orbiting objects. The team of scientists that participated in this study published it in the journal Nature Astronomy. It is now available on the arXiv pre-print service for interested people.
Conclusion
Astronomers recently discovered a brown dwarf that appears hotter than our sun at only 1,400 light-years from Earth. This newly discovered brown dwarf is the hottest exoplanet ever spotted in the interstellar space. Scientists are using the latest discovery to learn more about the impact blazing stars have on their orbiting celestial objects. What do you think about this fascinating discovery?
