November 15, 2016

Illustration of OGLE-2015-BLG-1319: in grey the data from ground-based telescopes, in blue the data from Swift and in red the data from Spitzer (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech)

An article published in “Astrophysical Journal” describes the study of a brown dwarf that orbits a K-type star that was possible thanks to a gravitational microlensing event. An international team of astronomers used NASA’s Swift and Spitzer space telescopes to take advantage of that event, cataloged as OGLE-2015-BLG-1319, at a distance from its star that at which few of those objects were found, hence the name brown dwarf desert.