An international team of astronomers has made an exciting discovery while analyzing data from the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS). They have found a new brown dwarf, named NGTS-28Ab, which orbits its host star in just 30 hours. This remarkable finding was detailed in a paper published on February 15 on the preprint server arXiv.
Lead astronomer Beth A. Henderson from the University of Leicester, U.K., and her team have reported the rare discovery of this new brown dwarf. By utilizing data from NGTS and NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), they thoroughly investigated the binary system NGTS-28.
The researchers initially identified the brown dwarf within the Next Generation Transit Survey data, with additional observations from TESS sectors 11 and 38. Further confirmation of the brown dwarf’s existence was obtained through follow-up observations using ground-based facilities, including the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO).
The newly discovered brown dwarf is slightly smaller than Jupiter, yet it is 69 times more massive than the largest planet in our solar system. This results in an extraordinary density of approximately 98.7 g/cm3.
2024-02-24 02:00:04
Post from phys.org