A Sub-Stellar Jonah - Brown Dwarf Survives Being Swallowed

University of Leicester Involved in Study

An artists impression of the brown dwarf orbiting the white dwarf WD0137-349 More Information ROLLOVER Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)

"Such a system must have had a very troubled history", said Pierre Maxted, lead author of the paper that reports the study in this week's issue of Nature. "Its existence proves that the brown dwarf came out almost unaltered from an episode in which it was swallowed by a red giant."

The two objects, separated by less than 2/3 of the radius of the Sun or only a few thousandths of the distance between the Earth and the Sun, rotate around each other in about 2 hours. The brown dwarf [1] moves on its orbit at the amazing speed of 800 000 km/h!

The two stars were not so close in their past. Only when the solar-like star that has now become a white dwarf [2] was a red giant, did the separation between the two objects diminish drastically. During this fleeting moment, the giant engulfed its companion. The latter, feeling a large drag similar to trying to swim in a bath full of oil, spiraled in towards the core of the giant. The envelope of the giant was finally ejected, leaving a binary system in which the companion is in a close orbit around a white dwarf.

"Had the companion been less than 20 Jupiter masses, it would have evaporated during this phase", said Maxted.

The brown dwarf shouldn't rejoice too quickly to have escaped this doom, however. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity predicts that the separation between the two stars will slowly decrease.

The snapshot image Credits ROLLOVER
More Information ROLLOVER	More Information ROLLOVER

Astronomers at the University of Leicester have long had an interest in white dwarf and brown dwarf stars. Leicester researchers Dr. Matt Burleigh and Dr. Paul Dobbie teamed up with Maxted and Napiwotzki to study this exciting binary system. They were able to determine that there was an excess of infrared radiation from the star system, which confirmed the presence of the brown dwarf. Dr. Burleigh and Dr. Dobbie are now studying the brown dwarf in detail with new infrared observations, and are looking for even smaller companions to white dwarfs - planets!

Dr Burleigh said: "This exciting discovery tells us more about what happens to stars like our Sun, and any accompanying brown dwarfs and planets, when they reach the end of their lives and become a red giant and then, finally, a white dwarf. This will happen to our Sun in 5 or 6 billion years time. Will some of the planets, like Jupiter, survive?"

The low mass companion to the white dwarf (named WD0137-349) was found using spectra taken with EMMI at the ESO's New Technology Telescope at La Silla. The astronomers then used the UVES spectrograph on ESO's Very Large Telescope to record 20 spectra and so measure the period and the mass ratio.

Source / Credit: University of Leicester