Brown Dwarfs

Brown dwarfs are substellar objects that are not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion of ordinary hydrogen into helium in their cores, unlike a main-sequence star. Instead, they have a mass between the most massive gas giant planets and the least massive stars, approximately 13 to 80 times that of Jupiter. However, they can fuse deuterium, and the most massive ones can fuse lithium. Astronomers classify self-luminous objects by spectral class, a distinction intimately tied to the surface temperature, and brown dwarfs occupy types M, L, T, and Y. As brown dwarfs do not undergo stable hydrogen fusion, they cool down over time, progressively passing through later spectral types as they age. Despite their name, to the naked eye, brown dwarfs would appear in different colors depending on their temperature. The warmest ones are possibly orange or red, while cooler brown dwarfs would likely appear magenta to the human eye.

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What Makes Brown Dwarfs So Weird?

The Webb Discovers a Rich Population of Brown Dwarfs Outside the Milky Way

Gliese 229B is Actually Compact Pair of Brown Dwarfs, Astronomers Find

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First time brown dwarfs seen so near host stars - EurekAlert

The Chaotic Birth of Brown Dwarfs Revealed

JWST Accidentally Found 21 Brown Dwarfs

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Ground-Breaking Number of Brown Dwarfs Discovered

Citizen Scientist Discovers 34 New Ultracool Brown Dwarfs

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A New Technique Finds a Bundle of Brown Dwarfs

Ground-breaking number of brown dwarfs discovered

Twin Brown Dwarfs Discovered, Orbiting one Another at Three Times the Distance From the Sun to Pluto

Two new studies using data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope shed light on giant exoplanets and brown dwarfs, objects that aren’t quite stars but aren’t quite planets either.

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 are Probably Much More Common in the Milky Way Than Previously Believed

Unravelling the mystery of brown dwarfs

Five Astronomical Objects Help Unravel the Mystery of Brown Dwarfs

Brown Dwarfs Could Reveal Secrets of Planet and Star Formation