Despite the fact that brown dwarfs emit very little energy compared to ordinary stars, astronomers have managed to identify quite a few such objects to date. However, their findings in star systems are still rare. The more interesting is the recent discovery made by a team of European astronomers. They managed to find four previously unknown brown dwarfs at once, which are stellar companions.
Astronomers have selected 25 stars showing significant differences in their own motion between different astrometric catalogs. Next, they examined them using the SPHERE instrument installed on the Very Large ESO Telescope.
In total, the researchers managed to find ten previously unknown stellar companions. Six are luminaries, four are brown dwarfs. They received the designation HIP 21152 B, HIP 29724 B, HD 60584 B and HIP 63734 B.
All newly found brown dwarfs revolve around young luminaries whose age does not exceed a billion years. Their masses range from 0.012 to 0.063 solar masses, orbits pass at a distance of 6.3 to 30 au from their parent stars.