Astronomers from Penn State University had found a new brown dwarf star very close to our Sun using NASA's WISE and Spitzer Space Telescope, just 7.2 light years away. Important thing is this star is as cold as our North pole.
This image shows the relative distance of new-found brown dwarf relative to other neighbor stars
This new found brown dwarf star is named as WISE J085510.83-071442.5 and its temperature is between -48 to -13 degree Celsius. This temperature is a new record because the previously found brown dwarf stars were about room temperature or about 20 degree Celsius.
Brown dwarf stars are like "failed" stars, they are of the size between 15 times the mass of Jupiter and 75 times the mass of Jupiter, because of the mass range the object wouldn't have enough mass to start the fusion, that powers normal stars, therefor couldn't burn nuclear fuel or radiate light.
Brown dwarf star
WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) was able to capture this brown dwarf star because it surveyed entire sky twice and also it surveyed them in infrared. These brown dwarf stars wont give off light, so we wont see them through normal light telescope, but their thermal glow can be captured using infrared.
This WISE J085510.83-071442.5 is 3 to 10 times the mass of Jupiter, with such low mass it could be a gas giant planet, but scientists believe that this should be a brown dwarf, because brown dwarf are common in space.
Source: Phys.org
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