One nice result from NASA\'s WISE infrared survey of the sky is the discovery of

Question

One nice result from NASA's WISE infrared survey of the sky is the discovery of particularly cool (as in 'not very warm') stars, now called 'Y dwarfs'. This was reported, for example, in

NASA's WISE mission discovers coolest class of stars (Science Daily, August 24, 2011).

whic includes a pretty nice artist's representation of what they might look like:

enter image description here

Could we achieve a high enough resolution to actually be able to study the dynamics of brown dwarf atmospheres in the near-future?

The one thing with brown dwarfs (especially isolated ones like this) is that you can't really subtract the transit spectrum from the parent spectrum (as you can with transiting exoplanets)

Explanation / Answer

not currently. The only images we have are of extended red and blue giants, and then only just via interferometers and the largest telescopes.

In maybe 10 years space born infra red interferometers might be imaging these objects but probably more like 20 to 30 years...

The best resoution we have managed so far in the optical is around 0.5 milli arcseconds, an impriovement in this by a factor of 10 to 100 would be necessary to image/measure brown dwarfs.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse O
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.