Weird ‘super planet’ first discovered with radio observations

Researchers have discovered a bizarre “super-planet” for the first time using radio observations, according to a new study.

Known as BDR J1750 + 3809 or Elegast, the “super-planet” is actually a brown dwarf, a celestial object too cold and too small to be a star. The discovery was made by researchers at the University of Hawaii, working in conjunction with tools from NASA and the Low-Frequency Array Telescope (LOFAR) in Europe.

“This work opens up a whole new method for finding the coldest objects floating near the sun, which would otherwise be too faint to be discovered with the methods used for 25 years,” said study co-author Michael Liu, in a statement.

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Brown dwarfs are generally more difficult to find using methods that astronomers normally use to find other stars. However, the light they emit at radio wavelengths was vital in the discovery of Elegast, the researchers added.

Since they do not have the mass necessary to trigger hydrogen fusion, they cannot be considered stars. Given their gaseous atmosphere, brown dwarfs are more like Jupiter and Saturn, the gas giants of our solar system, than the stars themselves.

“We asked ourselves: ‘Why point our radio telescope at cataloged brown dwarfs? Added lead author Harish Vedantham. “Let’s just make a big picture of the sky and find these objects right in the radio.”

With the discovery of the BDR J1750 + 3809, researchers are hoping that more brown dwarfs – the things closest to exoplanets – could be discovered with radio telescopes.

The research was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

More than 4,500 exoplanets have been discovered to date, with only a small part believed to have the properties of containing life.

In October, a separate group of researchers discovered 24 potential “superhabitable” planets that may have better conditions for life.

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