An accidental discovery hints at a hidden population of cosmic objects
Brown dwarfs aren't quite stars and aren't quite planets, and a new study suggests there might be more of them lurking in our galaxy than scientists previously thought.
Brown dwarfs aren't quite stars and aren't quite planets, and a new study suggests there might be more of them lurking in our galaxy than scientists previously thought.
Astronomy
Aug 31, 2021
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Using new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered methane emission on a brown dwarf, an unexpected finding for such a cold and isolated world. Published in the journal Nature, ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 17, 2024
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(Phys.org) —An international team of astronomers has discovered an exotic young planet that is not orbiting a star. This free-floating planet, dubbed PSO J318.5-22, is just 80 light-years away from Earth and has a mass ...
Astronomy
Oct 9, 2013
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Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. In terms of mass, Jupiter dwarfs the other planets. If you were to gather all the other planets together into a single mass, Jupiter would still be 2.5 times more massive. ...
Astronomy
Nov 19, 2019
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(Phys.org)—Located some 23 light years away, the brown dwarf designated WISEP J060738.65+242953.4 or W0607+24 for short, turns out to be a source of radio emission. According to a research paper published July 4, this substellar ...
Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have made the first radio-telescope detection of a planetary-mass object beyond our Solar System. The object, about a dozen times more ...
Astronomy
Aug 3, 2018
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A mysterious planet-like object orbiting a not-quite-starlike "brown dwarf" is the most recent enigma discovered by astronomers with their ever-more powerful telescopes. Kamen Todorov, a graduate student ...
Astronomy
Apr 6, 2010
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Although astronomers often refer to brown dwarfs as "failed stars," scientists at the University of Delaware have discovered that at least one of these dim celestial objects can emit powerful flashes of light.
Astronomy
Jun 13, 2016
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(Phys.org)—A planet that is not orbiting a star, effectively making it homeless, has been discovered by a team of University of Montreal (UdeM) researchers working with European colleagues and data provided by the Canada-France-Hawaii ...
Astronomy
Nov 14, 2012
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Astronomers have discovered what appears to be a tiny star with a giant, cloudy storm, using data from NASA's Spitzer and Kepler space telescopes. The dark storm is akin to Jupiter's Great Red Spot: a persistent, raging storm ...
Astronomy
Dec 10, 2015
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