IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v433y2005i7023d10.1038_nature03225.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A dynamical calibration of the mass–luminosity relation at very low stellar masses and young ages

Author

Listed:
  • Laird M. Close

    (University of Arizona)

  • Rainer Lenzen

    (Max-Plank-Institut fur Astronomie)

  • Jose C. Guirado

    (Universitat de Valencia)

  • Eric L. Nielsen

    (University of Arizona)

  • Eric E. Mamajek

    (University of Arizona)

  • Wolfgang Brandner

    (Max-Plank-Institut fur Astronomie)

  • Markus Hartung

    (European Southern Observatory)

  • Chris Lidman

    (European Southern Observatory)

  • Beth Biller

    (University of Arizona)

Abstract

Star formation: evidence of mass The rapidly spinning young star AB Doradus (AB Dor) is thought to have a low-mass companion star, detected as an astrometric ‘wobble’. It has proved elusive — even to the Hubble Space Telescope — but now a new instrument built to image extrasolar planets shows what it can do by observing the faint companion. The high-contrast NACO SDI adaptive optics camera at the European Southern Observatory reveals the object, dubbed AB Dor C, to be of very low mass for a star (90 times that of Jupiter). It is 400 °C cooler and 2.5 times fainter than predicted by stellar models. This suggests that most known brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets are heavier than was thought, and the new findings will be important for the design of future cameras intended to find extrasolar planets. See the cover story for more on the search for new planets.

Suggested Citation

  • Laird M. Close & Rainer Lenzen & Jose C. Guirado & Eric L. Nielsen & Eric E. Mamajek & Wolfgang Brandner & Markus Hartung & Chris Lidman & Beth Biller, 2005. "A dynamical calibration of the mass–luminosity relation at very low stellar masses and young ages," Nature, Nature, vol. 433(7023), pages 286-289, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:433:y:2005:i:7023:d:10.1038_nature03225
    DOI: 10.1038/nature03225
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03225
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature03225?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:433:y:2005:i:7023:d:10.1038_nature03225. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.