SETI public: Fw: Weighing Ultra-Cool Stars (ESO PR 16/04)

• Previous message: LARRY KLAES: "SETI public: Fw: NASA 'EVOLUTIONARY' SOFTWARE AUTOMATICALLY DESIGNS ANTENNA"

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From: esonews_at_eso.org<mailto:esonews_at_eso.org>
To: ljk4_at_msn.com<mailto:ljk4_at_msn.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 12:06 PM
Subject: Weighing Ultra-Cool Stars (ESO PR 16/04)

Dear subscribers,

Using ESO's Very Large Telescope at Paranal and a suite of ground- and space-based telescopes in a four-year long study, an international team of astronomers has measured for the first time the mass of an ultra-cool star and its companion brown dwarf. The two stars form a binary system and orbit each other in about 10 years.

The team obtained high-resolution near-infrared images; on the ground, they defeated the blurring effect of the terrestrial atmosphere by means of adaptive optics techniques. By precisely determining the orbit projected on the sky, the astronomers were able to measure the total mass of the stars. Additional data and comparison with stellar models then yield the mass of each of the components.

The heavier of the two stars has a mass around 8.5% of the mass of the Sun and its brown dwarf companion is even lighter, only 6% of the solar mass. Both objects are relatively young with an age of about 500-1,000 million years.

These observations represent a decisive step towards the still missing calibration of stellar evolution models for very-low mass stars.

The full text of this Press Release along with one picture and an animation is available at http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2004/pr-16-04.html>

Kind regards,

The ESO EPR Dept.

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• Previous message: LARRY KLAES: "SETI public: Fw: NASA 'EVOLUTIONARY' SOFTWARE AUTOMATICALLY DESIGNS ANTENNA"

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