| Observation data Epoch J2000 Equinox J2000 | |
|---|---|
| Constellation | Centaurus |
| Right ascension | ≈ 14h 07m 48s[1] |
| Declination | ≈ −39° 45′ 43″[1] |
| Details | |
| Mass | <6 MJup |
| Database references | |
| SIMBAD | data |
J1407b is a likely free-floating substellar object with a dusty circumplanetary disk or massive ring system about 90 million kilometers (56 million miles) in radius. It was first detected by telescopes of the Super Wide Angle Search for Planets (SuperWASP) and All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) projects in April–June 2007, when J1407b's disk eclipsed the star V1400 Centauri and caused it to undergo a series of dimming events for 56 days. A team of astronomers led by Eric E. Mamajek discovered J1407b's eclipse in the SuperWASP data and announced the discovery in 2012. The eclipse revealed fine structural details in J1407b's disk, which comprises at least 37 rings and gaps of varying widths and opacities. The circumplanetary disk of J1407b will eventually coalesce into a system of exomoons in less than a few billion years.
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.[2]: 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.[3] Recent observations by ALMA in June and July 2024 will confirm whether this object is J1407b or not.[4]
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