Nancy A. Levenson
Science Highlights
Recent results from Gemini cover a wide gamut of subjects — from the
spectroscopic confirmation of a very nearby brown dwarf pair to the use of a
single near-infrared spectrum to determine a black hole’s mass within an active
galactic nucleus.
Closest Solar Neighbor Discovered in Past Century
Large proper motion suggested that an object recently detected with NASA’s Wide-field
Infrared Survey Explorer satellite (WISE), WISE J104915.57-531906, is nearby, with parallax
measurements confirming a distance of only 6.5 light-years (2 parsecs). This makes the new
object the closest found in a century, and the third closest overall.
Figure 1.
The combination of WISE and
other near-infrared surveys has
provided multi-epoch data for
such proper-motion searches,
enabling detection of nearby
cool (and optically faint) objects. WISE alone, having exceeded its original planned
lifetime, provides the multiple
observations required.
WISE J104915.57531906 lies at the center
of the larger image.
It appears as a single
object in this image
from WISE. Higher
resolution observations
using GMOS-South
revealed its binary
nature (inset) and
enabled classification of
the brown dwarf pair.
8
Kevin Luhman (Penn State
University) discovered the
large proper motion of
WISE
J104915.57-531906 in the WISE
data. He then recovered the
object in other earlier surveys
to obtain a more accurate distance measurement.
GeminiFocus
April2013