V1400 Centauri
Young sun-like star in the constellation Centaurus / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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V1400 Centauri (known under its SuperWASP catalogue entry 1SWASP J140747.93−394542.6, or simply J1407) is a young, pre-main-sequence star that was eclipsed by a likely free-floating substellar object with a circumplanetary disk or ring system (known as J1407b) in April–June 2007. With an age around 20 million years, the star is about as massive as the Sun and is located in the constellation Centaurus at a distance of 451 light-years away from the Sun. V1400 Centauri is a member of Upper Centaurus–Lupus subgroup of the Scorpius–Centaurus association, a group of young, comoving stars close to the Sun.
Observation data Epoch J2000 Equinox J2000 | |
---|---|
Constellation | Centaurus |
Right ascension | 14h 07m 47.92976s[1] |
Declination | −39° 45′ 42.7671″[1] |
Apparent magnitude (V) | 12.2–15.6[2] |
Characteristics | |
Evolutionary stage | Pre-main sequence[3] |
Spectral type | K5 IVe Li[3][4] |
Variable type | rotational T Tau and eclipsing[2] |
Astrometry | |
Radial velocity (Rv) | 5.904±0.151[4] km/s |
Proper motion (μ) | RA: −23.108±0.015 mas/yr[1] Dec.: −21.048±0.017 mas/yr[1] |
Parallax (π) | 7.2351 ± 0.0140 mas[1] |
Distance | 450.8 ± 0.9 ly (138.2 ± 0.3 pc) |
Details | |
Mass | Gaia DR3 with magnetism:[5] 0.977+0.023 −0.045 M☉ Gaia DR3 without magnetism:[5] 0.891+0.062 −0.144 M☉ Gaia DR2:[6]: 2 0.95±0.10 M☉ |
Radius | 1.0661+0.0062 −0.0139[7] R☉ |
Luminosity | 0.3431+0.0067 −0.0064[7] L☉ |
Surface gravity (log g) | 4.302+0.0243 −0.0243[7] cgs |
Temperature | 4343+24 −29[7] K |
Metallicity [Fe/H] | −0.1903+0.0448 −0.0422[7] dex |
Rotation | 3.206±0.002 d[8]: 6 [lower-alpha 1] |
Rotational velocity (v sin i) | 14.6±0.4[9] km/s |
Age | ~16[3] or 21.38+4.30 −7.60[6]: 2 Myr |
Other designations | |
Database references | |
SIMBAD | data |
The discovery of J1407b and its 2007 eclipse of V1400 Centauri was announced in 2012 by a team of astronomers led by Eric E. Mamajek, who directed an analysis of photometric data from the Super Wide Angle Search for Planets (SuperWASP) sky survey. Mamajek's team initially hypothesized that J1407b is an exoplanet or brown dwarf orbiting the star, but that has since been disfavored by later studies. V1400 Centauri does not show repeating eclipses, telescope observations showed no orbiting companions, and the disk of J1407b would be unstable if it orbited the star, which suggests that J1407b likely does not orbit V1400 Centauri and is instead a free-floating object that coincidentally passed in front of the star. In this case, J1407b's coincidental eclipse of V1400 Centauri would be considered an extremely rare one-time event.[10]: 9
High-resolution imaging by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in 2017 revealed a single object near V1400 Centauri, which might be J1407b. The object's distance from V1400 Centauri appears to match the expected distance travelled by J1407b if it was a free-floating object. The object's brightness is suggestive of a dusty circumplanetary disk surrounding a planetary-mass object below 6 Jupiter masses, which would make it a sub-brown dwarf or a rogue planet. However, the object has only been observed by ALMA once, so it is not yet confirmed whether it is a moving foreground object or a stationary background galaxy.[11] Recent observations by ALMA in June and July 2024 will confirm whether this object is J1407b or not.[12]