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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110824102135.htm And could we achieve a high enough resolution to actually be able to study the dynamics of brown dwarf atmospheres in the near-future? The one thing with brown dwarfs (especially isolated ones like this) is that you can't really subtract the transit spectra from the parent spectra (as you can with transiting exoplanets) |
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not currently. The only images we have are of extended red and blue giants, and then only just via interferometers and the largest telescopes. In maybe 10 years space born infra red interferometers might be imaging these objects but probably more like 20 to 30 years... The best resoution we have managed so far in the optical is around 0.5 milli arcseconds, an impriovement in this by a factor of 10 to 100 would be necessary to image/measure brown dwarfs. |
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The truth is that I believe still do not have eyesight with our telescopes to observe faithfully brown dwarf. This is not only due to the low quality (although very good) recent observations with telescopes. However, remember that these objects are small (about Jupiter masses), cold (emitting little light) and are very elusive. |
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