Discover a mysterious companion star

This is one of the smallest companion stars, even the smallest companion star ever photographed. The Hubble telescope observed it orbiting a low-mass star, CHRX-73 red dwarf.

CHRX-73B is a brown dwarf or planet? (Photo: HTV) This companion star may be small enough to be called a planet, but astronomers have discovered it, this is a brown dwarf, a star too small to light. The mass of CHRX-73B, the companion star of CHRX-73, is estimated to be 12 times the mass of Jupiter and possibly a planet.

Astronomer Kevin Luhman (Penn State University, USA) led the study in a companion star with CHRX-73, reminding that size is not a sufficient standard to define a planet.

To accurately characterize CHRX-73B, astrophysicists will track the presence of a disk of dust around the object. The Spitzer telescope once observed these dust disks around many brown dwarfs. However, CHRX-73 is too close to the companion star so Spitzer can see it clearly.

According to the researchers, waiting for the launch of the James Webb telescope is expected in 2013 to be able to carry out this observation.

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