📖 what
What is a brown dwarf?
spacestars
Quick Answer
A brown dwarf is an object too massive to be a planet but too small to sustain hydrogen fusion like a true star.
The Full Story
Brown dwarfs sit between the largest gas giant planets and the smallest stars, with masses of roughly 13 to 80 times that of Jupiter. They cannot fuse ordinary hydrogen in their cores, so they slowly cool and dim over time. Despite their name, they appear deep red or magenta rather than brown and give off most of their light as infrared. Their existence was predicted in the 1960s, but the first confirmed brown dwarfs were found in 1995, including Gliese 229B. Many brown dwarfs are roughly the same size as Jupiter because their matter is so compressed.
Key Facts
1.Brown dwarfs have about 13–80 Jupiter masses
2.The first were confirmed in 1995
3.They glow mostly in infrared light
YouTube Angle
Suggested video title for this topic:
"The failed stars hiding in the dark"