Brown Dwarf Discovered with Jets

Jets of material have been seen blasting out of quasars, young stars, black holes and other massive objects. But now astronomers have discovered that even a lowly brown dwarf can have jets of outflowing material.

The discovery was made using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, which observed the brown dwarf 2MASS1207-3932. It was already a very interesting object because it has a 5 Jupiter mass planetary companion, and it’s surrounded by a planetary disc, like a young star. And like many young stars, it’s spewing jets of material from its poles.

The brown dwarf only has about 24 times the mass of Jupiter, so it’s not large enough to ignite solar fusion. But even so, it has these twin jets of outflow, stretching out a billion kilometres into space.

With an object this small having jets, astronomers think that young giant planets could also have outflows.

Original Source: ESO News Release