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1\13 ESO - Nearest Brown Dwarf- AVO Press Conference- Teachers' Summer School
Part 3 of 3

Epsilon Indi B is an important catch well beyond the cataloguing the 
Solar neighbourhood. As the nearest and brightest known brown dwarf 
and with a very accurately measured distance, it can be subjected to a 
wide variety of detailed observational studies. It may thus serve as a 
template for more distant members of its class.

With the help of Epsilon Indi B, astronomers should now be able to see
further into the mysteries surrounding the formation and evolution of 
the exotic objects known as brown dwarfs, halfway between stars and 
giant planets, the physics of their inner cores, and the weather and 
chemistry of their atmospheres.

An historical note - the southern constellation Indus
-----------------------------------------------------
ESO PR Photo 03d/03               Caption: PR Photo 03d/03 shows the
                                  southern constellation Indus (The
                                  Indian) and its surroundings, as
                                  drawn in the famous Uranographia
[Preview - JPEG: 478 x 400 pix -  published 1801 of German astronomer
91k]                              Johann Elert Bode. This reproduction
[Normal - JPEG: 956 x 800 pix -   was made from original printing         
952k]                             plates held by the library of the       
[Full-Res - JPEG: 2260 x 1892 pix Astrophysical Institute Potsdam         
- 3.2M]                           (Germany). The binary stellar system    
                                  Epsilon Indi is associated with one
                                  of the arrows in the Indian's hand.
                                  However, because of its proximity,
                                  only 12 light-years away, it is
                                  moving so fast across the sky that
                                  it is now located someway below the
                                  arrows. In only a few thousand
                                  years, it will have moved out of the
                                  Indus constellation and into the
                                  neighbouring constellation Tucana
                                  (The Toucan).

The constellation Indus lies deep in the southern sky, nestled between 
three birds, Grus (The Crane), Tucana (The Toucan) and Pavo (The 
Peacock), cf. PR Photo 03d/03.

First catalogued in 1595-1597 by the Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon
Keyser and Frederick de Houtman, this constellation was added to the
southern sky by Johann Bayer in his book 'Uranometria' (1603) to 
honour the Native Americans that European explorers had encountered on 
their travels.

In particular, it has been suggested that it is specifically the 
native peoples of Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia that are represented 
in Indus, just over two thousand kilometres south of La Silla where 
the first spectroscopic observations of Epsilon Indi B were made some 
400 years later.

In the later drawing by Bode shown here, Epsilon Indi, the fifth 
brightest star in Indus, is associated with one of the arrows in the 
Indian's hand.

More information
----------------
The information in this press release is based on a paper ("Epsilon 
Indi B:  a new benchmark T dwarf" by Ralf-Dieter Scholz and 
co-authors), soon to be published in the European journal Astronomy & 
Astrophysics (Letters). It is available on the web in preprint form at
http://babbage.sissa.it/abs/astro-ph/0212487.

Notes

[1]: This is a joint press release of the European Southern 
Observatory (ESO) and the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam (Germany). A 
German version of this press release is also available.

[2]: The team consists of Ralf-Dieter Scholz, Mark McCaughrean, 
Nicolas Lodieu (Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, Germany) and Bjoern 
Kuhlbrodt (Hamburg Observatory, Germany).

[3]: The SuperCOSMOS Sky Surveys (SSS) at the Wide-Field Astronomy 
Unit of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh 
include digitised data of UKST Schmidt plates in the BJ-, R- and 
I-passbands, with additional scans of ESO and POSS1 Schmidt plates in 
the R-band. A dedicated compilation of all photographic plates 
obtained for astronomical studies during the past century is carried 
out by the Wide-Field Plate Database project, based at the Institute 
of Astronomy of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia.

[4]: 1 arcsec (arcsecond) is 1/60th of 1 arcmin (arcminute), which in 
turn is 1/60th of 1 degree. A proper motion of 1 arcsec/year 
corresponds to a position change of 1 degree (two full lunar 
diameters) in 3600 years.

[5]: Distances for relatively nearby objects can be measured 
accurately via the technique of "trigonometric parallax". As the Earth 
orbits the Sun, nearby objects appear to move slightly against the 
relatively fixed background of distant, faint stars. By measuring the 
shift of the nearby star over a six month period, its distance from 
the Earth can be calculated via standard trigonometry, knowing the 
distance of the Earth from the Sun.  The ESA Hipparcos satellite, 
orbiting the Earth in the 1990s, measured a distance to Epsilon Indi 
of 3.626 parsecs or 11.82 light years (112 million million 
kilometres), with an error of just 0.3%.

[6]: Epsilon Indi has been suggested to have a planetary system in 
many works of science fiction, including the "Known Space" novels of 
Larry Niven, the award-winning short story "Sleeping Dogs" by Harlan 
Ellison, episodes of both the original Star Trek and the more recent 
Next Generation series, and in many role-playing and fan fiction sites 
on the Internet.

[7]: Definitions of the new L and T spectral classes, along with 
detailed information on their photometric and spectroscopic 
characteristics can be found at these websites: 
http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/davy/ARCHIVE/ and 
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~adam/homepage/research/tdwarf/. Other ESO 
Press Releases about brown dwarf objects include PR 07/97, PR 16/00, 
PR 14/01, and PR 14/02.

Contacts

Ralf-Dieter Scholz
Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam
Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)331 749 9336
email: rdscholz at aip.de

Mark McCaughrean
Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam
Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)331 749 9525
Email: mjm at aip.de

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