SPHEREx spots menagerie of brown dwarfs with atmospheric water and methane
NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the universe, Epoch of Reionization, and ices Explorer) space telescope is shedding light on brown dwarfs, celestial objects that blur the line between stars and exoplanets. New findings published in The Astrophysical Journal show that these dark and cloudy worlds have chemically rich atmospheres not unlike the giant planets in our own solar…
NASA's SPHEREx space telescope has discovered a diverse array of brown dwarfs with atmospheres containing water and methane, shedding light on these mysterious celestial objects. Brown dwarfs, which form like stars but lack the mass to sustain nuclear fusion, have complex atmospheres similar to Jupiter and Saturn. Previously, only a few dozen of these dark wanderers have been studied in detail.
The new study, published in The Astrophysical Journal, analyzed SPHEREx observations of 37 nearby brown dwarfs across the entire temperature range, from about 4,000 to minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The telescope measured the brightness of the brown dwarfs in 102 different colors, creating a spectrum that revealed the presence of water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane in their atmospheres.
Lead author Zafar Rustamkulov, a scientist at IPAC, Caltech, stated that the spectra showed how these molecules change across the temperature regime. The findings provide a call to action to explore more of these dark worlds and understand their chemical trends and cloud-clearing transitions, as models struggle to match the data in some cases.
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