Scientists and volunteer citizen astronomers discover brown dwarf gas balls in outer space

A collaborative effort between astronomers and backyard star gazers has produced proof of two “brown dwarfs,” strange massive balls of gas far out in the solar system that scientists hope will tell them how planets form.

“These surprising, weird brown dwarfs resemble ancient exoplanets closely enough that they will help us understand the physics of the exoplanets,” astrophysicist Marc Kuchner said in a press release from NASA.

An “exoplanet” is a planet outside our solar system.    

Kucher is a scientist observer with Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 and a scientist with NASA's Science Mission Directorate. He is also an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Center in Maryland.

Data for the discovery in part was performed by studying collected telescopic images beginning in 2011. The presence of the brown dwarfs was first suspected in 2016.  

Scientists have labeled the twin gas mass objects, which would look orange-red in color if you could observe them with the naked eye, as “the first extreme T-type sub-dwarfs.” The two objects are about 75 times the weight of Jupiter each and an estimated 10 billion years old making them as old as the oldest of the Milky Way’s stars.

Formations all their own, they do not look like other stars or planets and like ancient stars appear to have very little iron in their composition.

“A central question in the study of brown dwarfs and exoplanets is how much does planet formation depend on the presence of metals like iron and other elements formed by multiple earlier generations of stars,” Kuchner said in the NASA press release. “The fact that these brown dwarfs seem to have formed with such low metal abundances suggests that maybe we should be searching harder for ancient, metal-poor exoplanets, or exoplanets orbiting ancient metal-poor stars.”

A special telescopic tool that analyzes data called “WiseView” was developed by a citizen-scientist Dan Caselden with Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. The device was instrumental in the discovery by studying hundreds of outer space images allowing observers to see that the dwarf objects were moving rapidly, a clue the objects are near a celestial body, a planet or star.

The discovery was notable for the involvement of citizen volunteer astronomers who provided data, according to the press release. 

Adam Schneider, with the Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, was first to notice the brown dwarf now called “WISE 1810,” in 2016. He credited the contributions of volunteer star gazers for the discovery and confirmation of the two dwarf celestial bodies.

“The discovery of these two brown dwarfs shows that science enthusiasts can contribute to the scientific process,” Schneider said in the NASA press release. “Through Backyard Worlds, thousands of people can work together to find unusual objects in the solar neighborhood.”

Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 is an ongoing project and members of the public are invited to join and use project resources to explore astronomical treasures. Approximately 150,000 private citizen-scientists have participated, according to the press release. 

More information on Backyard Worlds: Plant 9 is available here.