A candidate substellar companion to CD -33°7795 (TWA 5)

  • Patrick J. Lowrance
  • , Chris McCarthy
  • , E. E. Becklin
  • , B. Zuckerman
  • , Glenn Schneider
  • , R. A. Webb
  • , Dean C. Hines
  • , J. Davy Kirkpatrick
  • , David W. Koerner
  • , Frank Low
  • , Roland Meier
  • , Marcia Rieke
  • , Bradford A. Smith
  • , Richard J. Terrile
  • , Rodger I. Thompson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We present the discovery of a candidate substellar object in a survey of young stars in the solar vicinity using the sensitivity and spatial resolution afforded by the NICMOS coronagraph on the Hubble Space Telescope. The H = 12.1 mag object was discovered approximately 2″ from the TW Hydrae association member CD -33°7795 (TWA 5), and the photometry implies a spectral type M8-M8.5, with a temperature of ∼2600 K. We estimate that the probability of a chance alignment with a background object of this nature is less than 2 × 10-5 and therefore postulate that the object (TWA 5B) is physically associated at a projected separation of 100 AU. Given the likely youth of the primary (∼10 Myr), current brown dwarf cooling models predict a mass of ≈20MJup for TWA 5B.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)L69-L72
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume512
Issue number1 PART 2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 10 1999

Keywords

  • Stars: Low-mass, brown dwarfs

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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