Some stars have planets. Others are orbited by brown dwarfs, balls of gas too massive to be planets, but too low-mass to be stars. Astronomers love these brown dwarf-star pairs […]
Brown Dwarfs
Posted inBrown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release, Stellar Cartography
A Sunlike Star Ate A Planet
A team of astronomers, led by Brooke Kotten of the University of Michigan, has shown that TOI-5882—a sun-like star located some 1,300 light-years away—has likely eaten one of its planets.
Posted inAriel Mission, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Assessing Ariel’s Capabilities To Observe Free-floating Brown Dwarfs
The primary goal of the Ariel space telescope is to conduct the biggest spectroscopic survey of transiting exoplanets to characterize their atmospheres and weather.
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Stellar Cartography
The Pan-Pacific Planet Search — IX. A Menagerie Of Companions Orbiting Evolved Stars
We present resolutions as to the nature of six speculative candidate companions proposed in the final data release of the Pan-Pacific Planet Search, a 6-year radial-velocity survey of 164 southern […]
Posted inAI - Data - Apps - Cybernetics, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Brown Dwarfs, Gas Giants, Nomenclature, Systematics, Natural History, Status Report, Stellar Cartography
Spectral Classification Of Brown Dwarfs Using Machine Learning
Brown dwarfs are compact objects that do not reach temperatures high enough to produce sustained hydrogen fusion. Consequently, they cool over time, gradually evolving through later spectral types.
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Beta Pictoris, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Status Report
Chemistry And Isotope Ratios Of Substellar Atmospheres In The β Pictoris Young Moving Group
Measuring the chemical and isotopic compositions of gas giants and brown dwarfs provides insights into their formation pathways and birth environments. 2MASS J0249-0557 c is an L2-type planetary mass companion […]
Posted inBrown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
The Coldest Known Y Dwarfs: Estimates of their Effective Temperatures
For a decade there has been a factor of 2.5 gap in luminosity between the 275K WISE J085510.83-071442.5 (Luhman 2014) and all other Y dwarfs, with Teff >= 350K. Recently […]
Posted inAstrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Press Release, Stellar Cartography, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
A New Spin On Planet Formation
Astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaiʻi Island, have confirmed a long-predicted relationship between planetary mass and rotation.
Posted inAstrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Brown Dwarfs, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Bridging the Gap: Using Brown Dwarfs to Examine Silicate Clouds in Giant Exoplanet Atmospheres
We present results from examining the silicate cloud modeling of four JWST-observed hot Jupiters in the context of brown dwarf theory to further explore signatures of formation in present-day atmospheres.
![The top panel are the inner and outer HZ limits for main-sequence stars as a function of stellar mass, according to (R. K. Kopparapu et al. 2013). The bottom panel is the same but for cloudy evolution brown dwarfs. The solid lines are the inner HZ and the dashed lines are the outer HZ. The difference between objects at the hydrogen-burning threshold arises because R. K. Kopparapu et al. (2013) employed a full radiative–convective atmospheric model, whereas this study assumes a constant planetary Bond albedo of 0.25. All brown dwarfs have [M/H] = +0.0. -- astro-ph.EP](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/The-Influence-of-Clouds-and-Deuterium.png?resize=1200%2C719&ssl=1)
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Status Report
The Influence Of Clouds And Deuterium-Burning On Brown Dwarf Habitable Zones
To better understand the potential habitability of planets orbiting brown dwarfs, this work presents a new set of equilibrium temperature evolution tracks. Unlike most previous work that relied on analytic […]