Reflections
Reflections
Spring semester finally ended and things are slowing down just for a little bit. I have about a month before going to present a poster at SPIE and then a talk at Cool Stars 22. There are still many things to be done for my LBT/NOMIC work, but I'm mostly excited to go to my first in person SPIE conference. I started working on infrared detectors right before the pandemic hit and then the last year of graduate school along with some health issues knocked out potential travel.
This past week I finally had the time to do a deep dive back into JWST pipeline end-to-end. Many of the time-series observations done with JWST/NIRSpec have been for spectroscopy of transiting exoplanets. My group got the first time-series observations of a brown dwarf with JWST at medium resolution. There was no space-based observatory prior to JWST that could take time-series spectra in the infrared at a resolution greater than a few hundred. With this extra resolution power hopefully the brown dwarf community can start distinguishing photometric changes from specific molecular gases and cloud species.
More Posts from Infraredastronomy and Others
The Importance of Deuterium
Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen with one extra proton. The ratio of deuterium to hydrogen (D/H) is an indicator of mass in isolated substellar objects. Brown dwarfs that have more than 12 times the mass of Jupiter are theoretically warm enough to fuse deuterium, causing smaller atmospheric D/H ratios. In Solar System objects the D/H ratio can be altered by temperature, material transport, or atmospheric escape. In Rowland+ 2024 (accepted ApJL), we were able to detect deuterium for the first time outside of our solar system in WISE 0855, the coldest known brown dwarf.
The overall D/H ratio is inferred by detecting both deuterated methane (CH3D) and normal methane (CH4) in the atmosphere of WISE 0855. From the data we also estimate that WISE 0855 has two times more mass than Jupiter. Both the deueterium abundance and mass are consistent with theoretical expectations. Deuterium is not exclusive to gravitationally bound companions and can be used to infer mass in both brown dwarfs and exoplanets. I was super excited to be apart of this paper and also previous work demonstrating we could detect CH3D is most cold brown dwarfs.
my life, my life, my life, my life. in the sunshine.
I take my driving test tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!
I really enjoyed doing this interview for the Brown Dwarf Podcast. It was such a pleasure talking with Phoenix.
A comparison of available data for Jupiter in 1969 compared to 1996, since then we've learned even more. Paper Link
Reflections
I recently adopted a cat and have named him Lorenzo. At the shelter he was kind of a mean ass cat. Now that he lives as a solo cat I'm seeing a really soft side of him and it warms my heart. I also recently submitted an instrument concept for the Gemini Strategic Planning community input. Not entirely sure where that will go, but I'm proud that I put myself out there with my team.
I PASSED WITH ONLY ONE ERROR
I take my driving test tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!
