Other Objects

Exo-Planets

Current Count

https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/counts_detail.html

HR 8799 (center)

from W. M. Keck Observatory

First direct imaging of an expolanet system orbiting

HR 8799 - revisited by JWST

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, W. Balmer (JHU), L. Pueyo (STScI), M. Perrin (STScI)

First direct imaging of an expolanet system orbiting

Brown Dwarf

Spectra

18 light-years away in the constellation Lepus. The brown dwarf is about 20-50 times the mass of Jupiter, but is so dense it is about the same diameter as Jupiter (80,000 miles).

[left] - The brown dwarf (center) was first observed in far red light October 27, 1994 using the adaptive optics device and a 60-inch reflecting telescope on Palomar Mountain in California. Another year was required to confirm that the object was actually gravitationally bound to the companion star. GL229B is at least four billion miles from its companion star, roughly the separation between the planet Pluto and our Sun. Even though a cornograph on the detector masked most of the light from the star, which is off the left edge of the image, it is so bright relative to the brown dwarf the glare floods the detector.

[right] - This image of the GL229B (center) was taken with Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera-2, in far red light, on November 17, 1995. The Hubble observations will be used to accurately measure the brown dwarf's distance from Earth, and yield preliminary data on its orbital period, which may eventually offer clues to the dwarf's origin. Though the star Gliese 229 is off the edge of the image, it is so bright it floods Hubble detector. The diagonal line is a diffraction spike produced by the telescope's optical system.