ONE of the smallest stars in the Milky Way, a red dwarf called Gliese 623b, has been spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope. The star has just one-tenth the mass of our Sun and is 60 000 times fainter. It revolves round a much larger star called Gliese 623a, taking four years to complete each orbit. The double-star system lies 25 light years away in the constellation of Hercules.
The photograph was taken with the European Space Agency鈥檚 faint-object camera aboard Hubble. Astronomers already knew of Gliese 623b鈥檚 existence from 鈥渨obbles鈥� in the larger star鈥檚 motion caused by the gravitational pull of its smaller companion. But this image is the first to show the two stars as separate objects.
