Brown Dwarf 23 light years away with Radio Emission

23 light years away is a brown dwarf (W0607+24) which is a source of radio emissions. According to a research paper published July 4, this substellar object showcases quiescent radio emission, making it one of the most radio-faint, ultra-cool dwarfs yet detected. The discovery of this process in this nearby object could be crucial for our understanding of this process in ultracool dwarfs in general.

The object is less than two billion years old, has a maximum mass of about 0.055 solar masses and a radius approximately of 0.1 solar radii.

Arxiv – Brown Dwarf with Radio Emission

Researchers present a simultaneous, multi-wavelength campaign targeting the nearby (7.2 pc) L8/L9 (optical/near-infrared) dwarf WISEP J060738.65+242953.4 in the mid-infrared, radio, and optical. Spitzer Space Telescope observations show no variability at the 0.2% level over 10 hours each in the 3.6 and 4.5 micron bands. Kepler K2 monitoring over 36 days in Campaign 0 rules out stable periodic signals in the optical with amplitudes great than 1.5% and periods between 1.5 hours and 2 days. Non-simultaneous Gemini optical spectroscopy detects lithium, constraining this L dwarf to be less than ~2 Gyr old, but no Balmer emission is observed. The low measured projected rotation velocity (v sin i < 6 km/s) and lack of variability are very unusual compared to other brown dwarfs, and we argue that this substellar object is likely viewed pole-on. We detect quiescent (non-bursting) radio emission with the VLA. Amongst radio detected L and T dwarfs, it has the lowest observed L_nu and the lowest v sin i. We discuss the implications of a pole-on detection for various proposed radio emission scenarios.