Dwarf binary plus one
Astronomy & Geophysics · 2014
Dwarf binary plus oneCareful observations of the orbits of the nearest pair of brown dwarf stars to Earth, Luhman 16AB, have found orbital variations that suggest a third member of the systempossibly a planet.Luhman 16AB is just 6.6 light years away and comprises two objects with masses between 30 and 50 times that of Jupiter -not massive enough to start hydrogen burning and become stars.They orbit at a separation of about 3 au.A team led by Henri Boffin of the European Southern Observatory used the FORS2 instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope at Paranal to measure -to a precision of a few milliarcseconds -slight orbital perturbations that suggest a planet with an orbital period between two months and a year.The results are published as a letter to Astronomy and Astrophysics.