brown dwarfs

Some astronomers have claimed the discovery of planets that formed around brown dwarfs, but none of these claims is definitive.

If red dwarfs can be compared to the red embers of a dying fire, then brown dwarfs would be the smoldering ash.

Indeed, in a young cluster of a given age, the percentage of brown dwarfs with disks is comparable to the percentage of stars with disks.

These time differences alone were enough to confirm that these bodies are definitely planets, and not brown dwarfs or other stars.

Brown dwarfs are not quite big hot enough to ignites the nuclear- fusion reaction that would make them shine as full- fledged stars .

What, then, accounts for brown dwarfs , which tip the scales at merely a few tens of Jupiters (a few hundredths of a solar mass)?

Brown dwarfs are also thought to be common, but there are only a few hundred known at this time because they are so difficult to see.

So far, the mounting evidence all points to a remarkably similar infancy for both sunlike stars and brown dwarfs.

Brown dwarfs are balls of gas whose mass is generally dozens of times that of Jupiter.

Ironically, studying the formation of brown dwarfs calls into question the very definition of these objects.

Red and brown dwarfs are smaller and cooler than our Sun, and do not shine brightly.

Over the years, we've pretty much ruled out all sorts of baryonic dark matter possibilities like brown dwarfs or black holes.

Brown dwarfs are balls of warm gas that lack the mass necessary to fuse hydrogen at their core, as stars can.

For these reasons, astronomers favor a more starlike formation scenario for brown dwarfs.

Simulations had shown that instabilities in the disc of gas around an isolated young star can trigger the formation of brown dwarfs.

Astronomers using WISE have spotted six Y-class brown dwarfs close to our sun -- within a distance of 40 light-years.

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, will uncover many 'failed' stars, or brown dwarfs, in infrared light.

Remarkably, brown dwarfs are roughly the size of the planet Jupiter.

Since there is a higher chance of such close encounters in dense star clusters, we might expect to detect more brown dwarfs there, he says.

unlike brown dwarfs in wider orbits, they are thought to have formed by disk accretion.

Hundreds of possible brown dwarfs are out there awaiting confirmation.

Brown dwarfs are the smallest and coolest of stars.

Observations might also catch brown dwarfs in the very act of forming.

Brown dwarfs can then form directly from ultralow -mass cores.

The space telescope has spotted 100 brown dwarfs previously unknown to astronomy.

Possibilities involving normal baryonic matter include brown dwarfs or perhaps small, dense chunks of heavy elements;