The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted six likely rogue worlds—objects with planetlike masses but untethered from any star’s gravity—including the lightest ever identified with a dusty disk around it.
Brown Dwarfs
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report, Stellar Cartography
The JWST/NIRISS Deep Spectroscopic Survey for Young Brown Dwarfs and Free-Floating Planets
The discovery and characterization of free-floating planetary-mass objects (FFPMOs) is fundamental to our understanding of star and planet formation. Here we report results from an extremely deep spectroscopic survey of […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Global Weather Map Reveals Persistent Top-of-atmosphere Features On The Nearest Brown Dwarfs
Brown dwarfs and planetary-mass companions display rotationally modulated photometric variability, especially those near the L/T transition. This variability is commonly attributed to top-of-atmosphere (TOA) inhomogeneities, with proposed models including patchy […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
Microphysical Prescriptions for Parameterized Water Cloud Formation on Ultra-cool Substellar Objects
Water must condense into ice clouds in the coldest brown dwarfs and exoplanets. When they form, these icy clouds change the emergent spectra, temperature structure, and albedo of the substellar […]
![The population of transiting exoplanets and brown dwarfs, as obtained from TEPCat [6], marker size corresponds to equilibrium temperature. Targets being observed in Cycle 1 and/or 2 are highlighted accordingly, their temperature is further indicated by their color, and the histogram shows the number of targets as a function of mass. The red line indicates the lowest mass objects being characterized through direct techniques to date. -- astro-ph.IM](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/The-Unrealised-Interdisciplinary.png?resize=1200%2C721&ssl=1)
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report
The Unrealised Interdisciplinary Advantage of Observing High Mass Transiting Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs — Strategic Exoplanet Initiatives with HST and JWST White Paper
We advocate for further prioritisation of atmospheric characterisation observations of high mass transiting exoplanets and brown dwarfs.
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report
Subaru/CHARIS High-Resolution Mode Spectroscopy of the Brown Dwarf Companion HD 33632 Ab
Brown dwarfs (BD) are model degenerate in age and mass. High-contrast imaging and spectroscopy of BD companions to host stars where the mass and age can be independently constrained by […]
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release
Scorching Storms On Distant Worlds Revealed In New Detail By JWST
Astronomers have created the most detailed weather report so far for two distant worlds beyond our own solar system.
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Jupiter, Press Release
Webb Images Cold Exoplanet Epsilon Indi Ab 12 Light-Years Away
If alien astronomers in a nearby star system had a telescope like NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, and they pointed it toward our solar system, then Jupiter might look very […]
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Stellar Cartography
Predicting The Galactic Population Of Free-floating Planets From Realistic Initial Conditions
We present the first prediction for the mass distribution function of Galactic free-floating planets (FFPs) that aims to accurately include the relative contributions of multiple formation pathways and stellar populations.
Posted inAstrochemistry, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Retrieving Young Cloudy L-Dwarfs: A Nearby Planetary-Mass Companion BD+60 1417B and Its Isolated Red Twin W0047
We present an atmospheric retrieval analysis on a set of young, cloudy, red L-dwarfs — CWISER J124332.12+600126.2 and WISEP J004701.06+680352.1 — using the Brewster retrieval framework. We also present the […]