Scientists using two NASA telescopes have discovered a new brown dwarf believed to be the coldest of its kind.

According to Space.com, a Penn State team used the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescope to spot the star that sits in the fourth-closest system to our own.

"It is very exciting to discover a new neighbor of our solar system that is so close," Kevin Luhman, an associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and a researcher in the school's Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, said in a press release. "In addition, its extreme temperature should tell us a lot about the atmospheres of planets, which often have similarly cold temperatures."

The researchers published their work last week in the Astrophysical Journal.

The new star, dubbed WISE J085510.83-071442.5, could be referred to as a "failed star." Like other brown dwarfs, the star lacks the mass necessary to set off a nuclear reaction in its core. Still, they resemble planets in several other ways and some are cool enough to have an atmosphere akin to a gas giant.

"This object appeared to move really fast in the WISE data," said Luhman. "That told us it was something special."

The newly found object is the coldest brown dwarf on record, at minus 54 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit, close to the conditions of the North Pole. The scientists also noted its particularly small size could be an indication it was rejected from its solar system.

"It is remarkable that even after many decades of studying the sky, we still do not have a complete inventory of the Sun's nearest neighbors," Michael Werner, Spitzer project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in the release. "This exciting new result demonstrates the power of exploring the universe using new tools, such as the infrared eyes of WISE and Spitzer."