Astronomers have found a pretty weird binary system about 450 light years from Earth: Neither of its components is a star. Instead, one is a brown dwarf, and the other appears to be a planet orbiting it! Even then, the brown dwarf is on the lower end of things. If it were any less massive it would be a planet itself.
The system is called CFHTWIR-Oph 98, but we ll call it Oph 98 for short. It was found a few years ago in ground-based observations using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope s infrared WIRCAM camera (hence the first part of the object s name) in a region of the galaxy where stars are being born which we see in the constellation of Ophiuchus (hence the second name part). It was observed in 2006 and 2012, and identified as a brown dwarf an object more massive than a planet but too lightweight to ignite sustained nuclear fusion in its core like a star.
Neuer Blick auf die Nachbarschaft unserer Sonne - Astronomen kartieren 525 Braune Zwerge im Umkreis von 65 Lichtjahren
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Mehr als 500 Braune Zwerge: 3D-Karte der Nachbarschaft unserer Sonne
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© Universität Bern / University of Bern, Illustration: Thibaut Roger
Artist s composition of the two newly discovered brown dwarfs.Pluto is not a planet, according to the vast majority of astronomers. While it orbits the Sun and is mostly round, it does not orbit alone, instead traversing the solar system accompanied by several moons, including a companion almost half its size. This is the main reason for its demotion in 2006.
A few holdouts continue to debate this definition, but they may have a new epistemic challenge to contend with: What makes a star? When a distant object is too small and too faint to be a star, but also too big to be an exoplanet, and is not solitary, how can you be sure what it is?
Exotik im All: Planetenähnliche Objekte wie Sterne geboren
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