The Spanish-Mexican group has discovered that the limit between those items which damage lithium and those which maintain it lies at 51.5 times the mass of Jupiter. The brown dwarf Reid 1B is a significant deposti fo lithium which will never ever be damaged.
A group of scientists at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE), Mexico, has found lithium in the oldest and coldest brown dwarf where the existence of this valuable aspect has been validated so far. This substellar things, called Reid 1B, maintains undamaged the earliest known lithium deposit in our cosmic area, going back to a time prior to the formation of the double star to which it belongs. The discovery was made using the OSIRIS spectrograph on the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma), in the Canary Islands. The research study has actually simply been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Brown dwarfs, also known as “coffee colored overshadows” or “failed stars” are the natural link between planets and stars. They are particularly intriguing because it was anticipated that some of them might protect intact their content of lithium, in some cases known as “white petroleum” because of its rarity and its significance.
In the past twenty years, astronomers have discovered and followed the orbital motions of binaries formed by brown overshadows in the solar area. In some of these systems, the main element has a mass adequate to burn lithium while the secondary might not have this mass.
The Spanish-Mexican team has actually discovered that the boundary in between those objects which damage lithium and those which protect it lies at 51.5 times the mass of Jupiter. The brown dwarf Reid 1B is a significant deposti fo lithium which will never be damaged. A group of scientists at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE), Mexico, has actually found lithium in the earliest and coldest brown dwarf where the existence of this valuable element has been validated so far. Observations of lithium in brown dwarfs allow us to estimate their masses with a degree of precision, based on nuclear responses. The lithium included in brown dwarfs is the biggest recognized deposit of this valuable component in our cosmic neighborhood.”.
Utilizing the OSIRIS spectrograph on the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC, or Grantecan) currently the largest optical and infrared telescope in the world, at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM), a group of researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE) made high level of sensitivity spectroscopic observations, between February and August this year, of 2 binaries whose components are brown dwarfs.
Doing this they made a remarkable discovery, a deposit of cosmic lithium which is not damaged, whose origin dates back before the development of the system to which Reid 1B belongs. It is, in fact, the coolest, faintest extrasolar things where lithium has been discovered, in an amount 13 thousand times higher than the quantity there is on Earth.
A chest of concealed treasure.
Observations of lithium in brown dwarfs allow us to estimate their masses with a degree of precision, based on nuclear reactions. The scientists have discovered that the lithium is maintained up to a dynamical mass which is 10% lower than that forecasted by the most recent theoretical models.
” We have been following the path of lithium in brown dwarfs for 3 decades,” says Eduardo Lorenzo Martín Guerrero de Escalante, Research Professor of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) at the IAC who is the very first author of the short article, “and lastly we have actually had the ability to make a precise decision of the boundary in mass between its preservation and its destruction, and compare this with the theoretical forecasts.” The scientist adds that “there are thousands of millions of brown dwarfs in the Milky Way. The lithium included in brown dwarfs is the largest known deposit of this valuable element in our cosmic area.”.
Carlos del Burgo Díaz co-author of the post, a scientist at the INAOE, a public research center of the Mexican CONACYT, describes that “although prehistoric lithium was developed 13.800 million years ago, together with hydrogen and helium, as a result of the nuclear reactions in the primitive fireball of the Big Bang, now there is as much as 4 times more lithium in the Universe.” According to this scientist “although this element can be damaged, it is also created in explosive events such as novae and supernovae, so that brown dwarfs such as Reid 1B can cover it up and secure it as if it was a chest of hidden treasure.”.
Referral: “New restrictions on the minimum mass for atomic lithium burning in brown dwarfs” by E L Martín, N Lodieu and C del Burgo, 23 October 2021, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.DOI: 10.1093/ mnras/stab2969.
This research has actually been financed by moneying from the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation (MINECO) and by the European Fund for Regional Developomente (FEDER) via job PID2019-109522GB-C53.
The Gran Telescopio Canarias, and the Observatories of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) belong to the network of Singular Scientific and Technical Infrastructures (ICTS) of Spain.
