The temperature of WISE J0304-2705, a peculiar celestial object similar to a planet , located between 33 and 55 light years away, could have reached that of some stars in its early evolutionary stages, while at present it is barely that of boiling water .
Those responsible for the find, a team of researchers coordinated by astrophysicist David Pinfield, from the University of Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom, emphasize that this extraordinary process has probably taken place over billions of years.
According to the model that these experts have built, the gaseous star, whose mass is about 25 times that of Jupiter , was kept at about 2,800 ° C for about 20 million years.
Later, and for about 100 million years, it cooled down to 1,500 ºC . It is possible that for another billion years it remained at 1,000 ° C, enough for methane and water vapor to dominate its appearance, and that several billion years later it cooled down to about 100 ° C.
WISE J0304-2705 has been cataloged as a brown dwarf of spectral class Y, a kind of failed stars, since, despite their size, they lack the necessary mass to carry out fusion reactions.
Astronomers, who have used some of the most important ground-based telescopes in the world, such as one of the 6.5-meter Magellan in Chile, point out that these unusual brown dwarfs can reach even lower temperatures. that in the coming years more of them will be found.
Photo: John Pinfield
