STIS Observations of a Brown Dwarf

Details STIS Observations of a Brown Dwarf STIS Observations of a Brown Dwarf

Jul 2000

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2000hst..prop.8482l&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #8482

Physics

Hst Proposal Id #8482

Scientific paper

Brown dwarfs are degenerate stars with masses smaller than 0.08 M_sun that do not burn hydrogen except when very young. There are now about a dozen good candidates based on near infrared photometry and low resolution spectroscopy, but a large number of brown dwarfs are being discovered daily by the DENIS and 2MASS surveys. The nearest and so far the coolest of the brown dwarfs is Gl 229B, which is about 6 pc distant and located about 7" from the early M dwarf primary star. The second closest brown dwarf is Kelu-1, located about 10-12 pc from the Sun. Little is known about brown dwarfs except that they are fully convective, they have about the same radius as Jupiter, and they probably cannot explain missing mass in our Galaxy. They likely have strong magnetic fields given that strong fields are measured in the latest of the M dwarfs and on Jupiter. Indirect evidence for magnetic fields on brown dwarfs is provided by the ROSAT X-ray detection of one young brown dwarf in the Chamaeleon I Dark Cloud and five brown dwarf candidates in Taurus of which the brightest in X-rays is MHO-4 {Neuhauser et al. A+A, 343, 883 [1999]} and the detection of an H-alpha flare on the 2MASS object J0149090+295613 {spectral type M9.5V} by Liebert et al {ApJ, 519, 345L [1999]}. We select MHO-4 as our target because young brown dwarf candidates are the most X-ray luminous and this target has low extinction.

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