OTS 44 is a free-floating

planetary-mass object A planetary-mass object (PMO), planemo, or planetary body is by geophysical definition of celestial objects any celestial object massive enough to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium (to be rounded under its own gravity), but not enough to sustain ...

brown dwarf Brown dwarfs (also called failed stars) are substellar objects that are not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion of ordinary hydrogen ( 1H) into helium in their cores, unlike a main-sequence star. Instead, they have a mass between the most ...

located at in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

Chamaeleon Chamaeleon () is a small constellation in the deep southern sky. It is named after the chameleon, a kind of lizard. It was first defined in the 16th century. History Chamaeleon was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius fro ...

near the

reflection nebula Reflection or reflexion may refer to: Science and technology * Reflection (physics), a common wave phenomenon ** Specular reflection, reflection from a smooth surface *** Mirror image, a reflection in a mirror or in water ** Signal reflection, in s ...

IC 2631. It is among the lowest-mass free-floating substellar objects, with approximately 11.5 times the mass of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

, or approximately 1.1% that of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

. Its radius is not very well known and is estimated to be 23–57% that of the Sun. OTS 44 was discovered in 1998 by Oasa, Tamura, and Sugitani as a member of the star-forming region Chamaeleon I. Based upon infrared observations with the

Spitzer Space Telescope The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), was an infrared space telescope launched in 2003. Operations ended on 30 January 2020. Spitzer was the third space telescope dedicated to infrared astronomy, f ...

and the

Herschel Space Observatory The Herschel Space Observatory was a space observatory built and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). It was active from 2009 to 2013, and was the largest infrared telescope ever launched until the launch of the James Webb Space Telesc ...

, OTS 44 emits an excess of infrared radiation for an object of its type, suggesting it has a circumstellar disk of dust and particles of rock and ice. This disk has a mass of at least 10 Earth masses. Observations with the SINFONI spectrograph at the

Very Large Telescope The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is a telescope facility operated by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It consists of four individual telescopes, each with a primary mirror 8.2 m across, ...

show that the disk is accreting matter at the rate of approximately 10⁻¹¹ of the mass of the Sun per year. It could eventually develop into a

planetary system A planetary system is a set of gravitationally In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interacti ...

. Observations with

ALMA Alma or ALMA may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Alma'' (film), a 2009 Spanish short animated film * ''Alma'' (Oswald de Andrade novel), 1922 * ''Alma'' (Le Clézio novel), 2017 * ''Alma'' (play), a 1996 drama by Joshua Sobol about Alma ...

detected the disk in

millimeter 330px, Different lengths as in respect to the electromagnetic spectrum, measured by the metre and its derived scales. The microwave is between 1 meter to 1 millimeter. The millimetre (American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, ...

wavelengths. The observations constrained the dust mass of the disk between 0.07 and 0.63 , but these mass estimates are limited by assumptions on poorly constrained parameters.

References

External links

Astronomers Discover Beginnings of 'Mini' Solar System
(

)
MPIA Science Release 2013-09 - Blurring the lines between stars and planets: Lonely planets offer clues to star formation
{{Stars of Chamaeleon M-type brown dwarfs Free-floating substellar objects Chamaeleon (constellation) Astronomical objects discovered in 1998

See also

References

External links