Earlier this year, we created a special tool to help us find new worlds in the external borders of our system. And this has already brought the first fruits. In 100 light years from the star, a brown dwarf was discovered. 6 days after the start of the resource Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 (February), users signaled an interesting object.
This project enables computer owners with a network connection to explore WISE images. For example, if an object is close to us, then when comparing frames with a difference of a year or more, it will shift. The number of volunteers already recorded 37,000 people. Their task is to identify moving objects and inform scientists about this. At the moment, received 4 million signals.
The debut of the site fell on February 15. The first weak object was noticed by Bob Fletcher (a teacher in Tasmania). Soon, three more reported the discovery. The data was checked using an infrared survey and confirmed that we have a brown dwarf in front of us, whose temperature indicator is only a few hundred degrees higher than that of Jupiter. Scientists say they lost sight of him because they are very weak. Brown dwarfs were called failed stars because their masses are not enough to start the process of vigorous synthesis. But the temperature is high enough to manifest itself in infrared observations.
The main goal of the project is to find the mysterious Planet Nine. But finding brown dwarfs is also important because it helps to make a more accurate map of the solar system.
