NASA WISE finds Coldest Ever Brown Dwarf Star

In a rare feat, NASA’s WISE has dug out coldest ever brown dwarf known to mankind located at the distance of 7.2 Light years away from our Earth, making it the fourth nearest system to our star.

NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which is used to scan out the skies for any new Planets and Stars, stumbled upon a “brown dwarf” — a dim, star-like body that, surprisingly, is as frosty as Earth’s North Pole.

The brown dwarf named ‘WISE J085510.83-071442.5′ has a chilly temperatures between minus 54 and 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 48 to minus 13 degrees Celsius).

“It’s very exciting to discover a new neighbour of our solar system that is so close,” Kevin Luhman, a Penn State astronomer, said in the NASA release.“And given its extreme temperature, it should tell us a lot about the atmospheres of planets, which often have similarly cold temperatures.”

Unlike most stars, brown dwarfs do not give off enough light or heat to make them visible to the naked eye. NASA, using infrared telescope technology, was able to spot WISE J085510.83-071442.5.

“It is remarkable that even after many decades of studying the sky, we still do not have a complete inventory of the sun’s nearest neighbours,” said Michael Werner, the project scientist for Spitzer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. JPL manages and operates Spitzer. “This exciting new result demonstrates the power of exploring the universe using new tools, such as the infrared eyes of WISE and Spitzer.”

I believe, these discoveries only conclude Human knew nothing about our neighbour and we have so much to learn about our surroundings. What do you think?  Are you excited about the latest discovery. Share with us your views