Luhman 16 compared to the Sun

A pair of brown dwarfs (“failed stars”), third-closest star-like system, undiscovered until 2013.

Can you see it?

No small telescope will show you this one; it is here to be understood, not spotted.

Luhman 16 is roughly one tenth as wide as the Sun.

Each of the two has roughly 1/30 the mass of the Sun.

Luhman 16 has roughly 1/942 the volume of the Sun.

Luhman 16’s surface is 1,077 °C. The Sun’s surface is 5,499 °C.

Anything light from there tells us is news 6.503 years old.

How much light it gives off: 2.2 × 10⁻⁵ solar luminosities each.
What it is: Binary pair of brown dwarfs — “failed stars”, too low in mass to ignite hydrogen fusion but too massive to be a planet.; How we know: Their spectra show methane and other molecules that survive only in atmospheres far colder than any star’s; their estimated masses are below the fusion cutoff of about 0.075 solar masses.

The numbers