NASA James Webb Space Telescope Finds Giant Brown Dwarf 31x Larger Than Jupiter [LOOK]

With the aid of the James Webb Space Telescope, a global team of scientists has discovered a brand-new, dim, far-off, and cold brown dwarf (JWST). The freshly found object, GLASS-JWST-BD1, is approximately 31 times as massive as Jupiter.

Brown dwarfs are thought to be transitional objects between planets and stars. They generally are substellar objects with masses between 13 and 80 Jupiter masses. Brown dwarfs of the T dwarf subtype have effective temperatures ranging from 500 to 1,500 K. They are the least bright and coldest substellar objects found so far.

On July 29, a paper describing the discovery was published on arXiv.org.

In Between Stars and Planets

Studying T dwarfs may help astronomers better comprehend objects at the disputed planet/star divide, such as large exoplanets. There have been many brown dwarf discoveries to date, but there have only been 400 discoveries of T dwarfs.

Brown dwarfs are celestial bodies that are located between planets and stars. Most astronomers agree that they are substellar objects with masses ranging from 13 to 80 Jupiter masses.

T dwarfs, a subgroup of brown dwarfs with temperatures between 500 and 1,500 K, are the coldest and least luminous substellar objects found so far, according to Phys.

Studying T dwarfs may help astronomers better comprehend objects at the disputed planet/star divide, such as giant exoplanets. Although there have been many brown dwarf discoveries, there have only been 400 T dwarf discoveries.

Strange star or rogue planet? @NASAWebb will investigate how the mysterious brown dwarf defies definition. #JWST https://t.co/2paDyEiAGj pic.twitter.com/HnsKiNks3o
— Space Telescope Science Institute (@SpaceTelescope) January 4, 2018

A group of astronomers led by Mario Nonino of the Astronomical Observatory of Trieste in Italy has identified a new brown dwarf, most likely belonging to the T dwarf subtype.

The discovery was discovered as part of the Through the Looking GLASS (GLASS-JWST) project, a JWST Early Release Science (ERS) program that used JWST's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSPEC), Near-Infrared Imager, and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) to study the massive galaxy cluster Abell 2744.

According to the analysis, GLASS-JWST-BD1 has an effective temperature of 600 K and a mass of about 31.43 Jupiter masses. This brown dwarf is said to be 5 billion years old.

(Photo : Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)
KOUROU, FRENCH GUIANA - DECEMBER 25: Launch teams monitor the countdown to the launch of Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket carrying NASAs James Webb Space Telescope on December 25, 2021, in the Jupiter Center at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called JWST or Webb) is a large infrared telescope with a 21.3 foot (6.5 meter) primary mirror. The observatory will study every phase of cosmic history from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe.

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Further Studies Needed

GLASS-JWST-BD1 may be a late-type T dwarf as compared to theoretical models. It was determined that it was located between 1,850 and 2,350 light-years distant when measured perpendicular to the galactic plane.

Abell 2744, a massive galaxy cluster, was studied using the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSPEC), Near-Infrared Imager, and Slitless Spectrograph as part of the JWST Early Release Science (ERS) program "Through the Looking GLASS" (GLASS-JWST).

The scientists concluded that more research is required to determine whether GLASS-JWST-BD1 is a T-dwarf. Particularly needed are kinematic or chemical abundance data to understand more about the properties of this particle.

In their final remarks, the paper's authors emphasized how this discovery demonstrates the JWST's capacity to investigate distant low-mass Galactic stellar and substellar objects.