Infrared Images of Binary 2MASS 1534-2952AB (IMAGE)

University of Hawaii at Manoa

Infrared Images of Binary 2MASS 1534-2952AB

Caption

Infrared image of the very low-temperature binary 2MASS 1534-2952AB, composed of two methane brown dwarfs. This was obtained with the laser guide star adaptive optics system on the Keck II Telescope, located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The image is 1.5 arc seconds across (about 1/1,000 of the size of the moon), and the binary's separation is about 0.2 arc seconds. Each component of the binary has a mass of about 3 percent the mass of the sun and emits about 1/100,000 the energy of the sun. These are the coolest free-floating objects ever directly weighed outside the solar system.

Credit

Dr. Michael Liu (Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii).

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