Scientists have directly imaged eight dim objects accompanying very bright stars within the Gaia data catalog, including so-called "failed stars," otherwise known as brown dwarfs.
The stars and their companions were originally identified from millions of stars in the Gaia catalog. They were considered ideal for follow-up investigations with the ground-based GRAVITY instrument, an advanced near-infrared interferometer located at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) on the peak of Cerro Paranal in Chile. By combining infrared light from multiple telescopes, a process called interferometry, GRAVITY has already achieved the first direct observation of an extrasolar planet, or "exoplanet."
