low mass stars Archives

March 25, 2024March 25, 2024 by Evan Gough

Brown Dwarf Pairs Drift Apart in Old Age

An artist's conception of a brown dwarf. A new study identifies CK Vulpeculae as the remnant of a collison between a brown dwarf and a white dwarf. Image: By NASA/JPL-Caltech (http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/image/114) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons — An artist's conception of a brown dwarf. Brown dwarfs are more massive than Jupiter but less massive than the smallest main sequence stars. Their dimness and low mass make them difficult to detect. Image: By NASA/JPL-Caltech (http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/image/114) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The only thing worse than drifting through space for an eternity is doing it alone. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope show that brown dwarfs that once had companions suffer that fate. Binary brown dwarfs that were once bound to each other tend to drift apart as time passes.

April 15, 2020April 15, 2020 by Evan Gough

Astronomers Measure the Wind Speed on a Brown Dwarf for the First Time. Spoiler: Insanely Fast

This artist's conception illustrates the brown dwarf named 2MASSJ22282889-431026, observed by NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. Brown dwarfs are more massive and hotter than planets but lack the mass required to become stars. Image credit: NASA

In some ways, brown dwarfs are nature’s stellar oddballs. A lot of stars exhibit strange behaviour at different times in their evolution. But brown dwarfs aren’t even certain that they’re stars at all.

But that doesn’t mean astronomers don’t want to study and understand them.