WISE 1639−6847

WISE 1639−6847, also known as WISE J163940.83−684738.6, is a special kind of object called a brown dwarf. Brown dwarfs are like stars, but they are not big enough to shine brightly like our Sun. This object belongs to a rare group called Y0 pec and is located in the constellation Triangulum Australe.

One amazing fact about WISE 1639−6847 is that it is very close to Earth—only about 15.5 light-years away. This makes it the closest star or brown dwarf in the entire constellation Triangulum Australe. As of February 2024, it is also the second closest known Y dwarf, which is a very cool and faint type of object in space.

Scientists discovered WISE 1639−6847 using a telescope called WISE, short for the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. Studying objects like this helps us learn more about the universe and the different kinds of objects that exist far away from us.

Discovery

WISE 1639−6847 was discovered in 2012 using data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a NASA satellite telescope. The discovery was made by C. G. Tinney and team. They used the Magellan Baade telescope in Las Campanas Observatory, located in Chile, to study this object further. Their findings were shared in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal in November 2012. This discovery identified WISE 1639−6847 as a special type of object called a Y-type brown dwarf.

Physical properties

WISE 1639−6847 is a special kind of object called a brown dwarf. It is one of the closest stars or brown dwarfs in the constellation Triangulum Australe, about 15.5 light-years from Earth. It was first thought to be between types Y0 and Y0.5, but later studies showed it is a bit unusual, so it was given the type Y0 pec, where “pec” means peculiar or unusual. Scientists found it hard to match its features with usual models, needing special conditions to explain it.