Ultra Cool Brown Dwarfs with WISE

Details Ultra Cool Brown Dwarfs with WISE Ultra Cool Brown Dwarfs with WISE

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21345907m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #459.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.365

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is a Medium-class Explorer program mission (MIDEX) designed to map the entire sky in four bands between 3 and 25 microns with vastly greater sensitivity than previous all-sky surveys at these wavelengths. WISE will be launching in late 2009. All-sky surveys are the optimal tool for finding rare objects, such as objects which bridge the gap in effective temperature and mass between the coolest currently known brown dwarfs (T 650 K) and the giant planets (T<150 K). Studies of these ultra-cool brown dwarfs will yield insights into the initial mass function, the minimum mass for brown dwarf formation, and the atmospheric characteristics of a possible new spectral class, the Y dwarfs. WISE is also likely to find the nearest star to the Sun; this object is not likely to be a star at all, but rather a low temperature brown dwarf.
The first two WISE bandpasses have been optimized for detecting the coolest brown dwarfs, those with effective temperatures <700 K. These objects are characterized by the formation of water, methane and ammonia absorption in their atmospheres, and several of the fundamental frequencies of these molecules occur in the mid-infrared wavelengths covered by WISE. WISE's 3.3 micron band is centered on the nu3 absorption feature of methane. The 4.7 micron band has been designed to capitalize on flux emerging between methane and water absorption bands. Using their unusually red [3.3]-[4.7] color as a selection criterion, it is anticipated that WISE will find 1000 ultra-cool brown dwarfs, of which 10 will have T<300 K. The coolest of these objects will be detected solely at 4.7 microns; however, with a minimum of eight individual exposures on every part of the sky, the reliability of such sources will still be high.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Ultra Cool Brown Dwarfs with WISE does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Ultra Cool Brown Dwarfs with WISE, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Ultra Cool Brown Dwarfs with WISE will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1705648