There is something very exciting going on only a little over six light years from Sol. Two Brown Dwarfs in a binary orbit seem to be harboring an exoplanet. Exciting point one....Brown Dwarfs and in a binary orbit.
Brown Dwarf stars are a curious animal. First for a star, they are tiny. For the most part hardly larger than a gas giant planet, in Luhman 16AB case, astronomers determined that the mass of these brown dwarfs is about 40 times that of Jupiter, but very much smaller than a star. Plus they are miserly with their energy putting out mostly infrared energy, some even so cool that if you could stand in the gravity, you could walk on the surface for the most part barefoot.
But to find two in a binary orbit is a bit rare. Whats more, it would seem that there is a planet in the mix as well.
Discovered by astronomers using NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft, Luhman 16AB is threefold more interesting as this system is only 6.6 light years away from Earth. If further investigation confirms the previous findings, Luhman 16AB's planet would be the closest exoplanet yet discovered.
More available on the Dvice.com article HERE
