Since the GPIES survey began five years ago, the team has imaged six planets and three
brown dwarfs orbiting these 300 stars.
For this reason,
brown dwarfs are often called failed stars, but despite its miniature proportions, EBLM J055557Ab maintains just enough mass to enable the fusion of hydrogen into helium in its core.
This process has succeeded in removing approximately 90% of the small star's mass, forcing it to experience a sea change from a true star into a sub-stellar
brown dwarf.
Researchers found the aurora- similar to the famous Northern Lights on Earth- not from a planet, but from a low-mass star at the boundary between stars and
brown dwarfs, Science Daily reported.
A
brown dwarf, or "failed star", is an object more massive than a planet yet too small to trigger the thermonuclear reactions that power stars.
The newfound coldest
brown dwarf is named WISE J085510.83-071442.5.
There are many candidates for dark matter, including undetected
brown dwarf stars, white dwarf stars, black holes, or neutrinos with mass (a neutrino is a fundamental nuclear particle that is electrically neutral and of much smaller mass, if any at all, than an electron).
Only a few examples of such close
brown dwarf binaries are known and this is only the second example of AO spectroscopic observations, the NAOJ officials said.
Since it wasn't totally cold, it was called a
brown dwarf. The existence of this particular
brown dwarf was later disputed, but other examples were reported.