Hubble Telescope Photographs Planet-Like Brown Dwarf : Science File / An exploration of issues and trends affecting science, medicine and the environment
<i> From Times staff and wire reports</i>
Caltech astronomers using the Hubble telescope have photographed the dimmest, most planet-like body ever observed around a star other than the sun. The object, probably a brown dwarf, has a mass about 20 to 50 times that of Jupiter and it glows a dim, dull red at temperatures no more than 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit. The object is too massive and hot to be called a planet, but too small and cool to glow like a star.
Two other brown dwarfs were discovered earlier this year, but both were so massive that it is difficult to distinguish them from stars. The methane-rich atmosphere of the new object, however, is “astonishingly like that of a gas giant planet” such as Jupiter, Caltech astronomer Shrinivas Kulkarni said.
