November 10, 2020

Artist's concept of the brown dwarf BDR J1750+3809 with its magnetic field and aurorae (Image ASTRON/Danielle Futselaar)

An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports the confirmation of the first detection of a brown dwarf through radio observations. This is the result of a collaboration between various entities that led to the use of the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope, the Gemini North telescope, and NASA’s InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF), both in Hawaii, to discover and characterize the brown dwarf cataloged as BDR J1750+3809. Being able to locate very faint objects with a radio telescope represents a significant advance because it will help to learn more about brown dwarfs and offers the hope of even finding exoplanets ejected from their star systems.