Luhman-16 B: The striped dwarf

Luhman-16 B is a brown dwarf – a star that was a little too small to actually become a star and ignite hydrogen fusion in its interior. Brown dwarfs are about the size of Jupiter, but typically dozens of times more massive. Luhman-16 B, along with its brother Luhman-16 A, is the closest to Earth of this type of celestial object. It is also the target of the “Majestic Dracht” in Proxima log 2.

Because of their nature – they do not glow – brown dwarfs are quite difficult to observe. Only with the ...