FU Tauri
Star in the constellation Taurus
FU Tauri is a binary brown dwarf in the constellation of Taurus. Based on parallax measurements, it is about 416 light years away.
01Variability
FU Tauri varies in brightness. The primary is a T Tauri variable, a type of irregular pre-main-sequence star. Its brightness has been observed to vary from a photovisual magnitude of 16.0 to fainter than 17.0. Its photographic magnitude has been measured to vary between magnitude 15.1 and below magnitude 17.6.
02Characteristics
The primary and secondary, FU Tauri A and B, have spectral types of M7.25 and M9.25, which are suggestive of masses of 0.05 and 0.015 solar masses (M☉). The system is very young, only ~1 million years old. Both brown dwarfs have infrared emission that indicates the presence of circumstellar disks. The binary system has a projected separation of 5.7″, which is equivalent to a projected separation of 800 AU at the system's distance.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “FU Tauri”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- FU Tau B.jpg by NASA/ESA/CSA JWST MIRI; Ya-Lin Wu et al. & Melina Thévenot, CC BY-SA 4.0
- FUTauLightCurve.png by PopePompus, CC BY-SA 4.0
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