Substellar companion

Substellar companion is a generic term for an astronomical body orbiting a star.

Earth and Space bound observatories observe Gliese 229 and its companion, which is perhaps 20-40 Jupiter masses in size[1]

It can describe a celestial bodies too small to be a star, but too big to be called a planet.[1] Alternatively, it is a substellar object such as exoplanet or brown dwarf that is orbiting a star.[2] Objects as low as 8-23 Jupiter masses have been called a substellar companion.[3]

Objects orbiting a star are often called a planet below 13 Jupiter masses and brown dwarf above that.[4] Companions at that planet-brown dwarf borderline have been called Super-Jupiters, such around the star Kappa Andromedae.[5] Nevertheless, objects as small as 8 Jupiter masses have been called a brown dwarf.[6]

A substellar companion is thought to exist in the binary star system SDSS 1212.[7] Substellar companions have been confirmed by analyzing astrometric data from Hipparcos.[8]

See also

References
  1. STScI-1995-48
  2. Mugrauer, M., et al - Direct detection of a substellar companion to the young nearby star PZ Telescopii (2010)
  3. S. Geier, et al - Discovery of a Close Substellar Companion to the Hot Subdwarf Star HD 149382 (2009)
  4. Nomenclature: Brown Dwarfs, Gas Giant Planets, and ?, Brown Dwarfs, Proceedings of IAU Symposium #211, held 20–24 May 2002 at University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Boss, A. P., Basri, G., Kumar, S. S., Liebert, J., Martín, E. L., Reipurth, B
  5. Astronomers Directly Image Massive Star's 'Super-Jupiter'11.19.12
  6. Discovery of a Planetary-Mass Brown Dwarf with a Circumstellar Disk, Luhman, et al., 2005
  7. Detection of Substellar Companion in Interacting Binary
  8. Sabine Reffert, Andreas Quirrenbach - Mass constraints on substellar companion candidates from the re-reduced Hipparcos intermediate astrometric data: Nine confirmed planets and two confirmed brown dwarfs (2011)


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