Brown Dwarfs

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
Brown Dwarfs
Exoplanets
The Search for Life
An unusual cosmic object is helping scientists better understand the chemistry hidden deep in Jupiter and Saturn’s atmospheres — and potentially those of exoplanets. Why has silicon, one of the most common elements in the universe, gone largely undetected in the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, and gas planets like them orbiting other stars?
Posted September 9, 2025
Astrophysics
Black Holes
Brown Dwarfs
Exoplanet Science
Exoplanets
Galaxies
Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes
Goddard Space Flight Center
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
Nebulae
Science & Research
Star-forming Nebulae
Stars
Studying Exoplanets
The Universe
Since July 2022, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been unwaveringly focused on our universe. With its unprecedented power to detect and analyze otherwise invisible infrared light, Webb is making observations that were once impossible, changing our view of the cosmos from the most distant galaxies to our own solar system.
Posted July 2, 2025
Astrophysics
Binary Stars
Brown Dwarfs
Exoplanets
Science & Research
The Universe
The Discovery A newly discovered planetary system, informally known as 2M1510, is among the strangest ever found. An apparent planet traces out an orbit that carries it far over the poles of two brown dwarfs. This pair of mysterious objects – too massive to be planets, not massive enough to be stars – also orbit […]
Posted May 21, 2025
Astrophysics
Brown Dwarfs
Goddard Space Flight Center
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
Science & Research
Star-forming Nebulae
The Universe
The Flame Nebula, located about 1,400 light-years away from Earth, is a hotbed of star formation less than 1 million years old. Within the Flame Nebula, there are objects so small that their cores will never be able to fuse hydrogen like full-fledged stars—brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs, often called “failed stars,” over time become very […]
Posted March 10, 2025
Astrophysics
Brown Dwarfs
Exoplanets
Goddard Space Flight Center
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
Science & Research
The Universe
An international team of researchers has discovered that previously observed variations in brightness of a free-floating planetary-mass object known as SIMP 0136 must be the result of a complex combination of atmospheric factors, and cannot be explained by clouds alone.
Posted March 3, 2025
Astrophysics Division
Brown Dwarfs
Citizen Science
NEOWISE
Stars
The Universe
WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer)
To take a census of nearby cosmic objects, sending out a survey won’t work. Scientists need to use many telescopes with different specializations to chart what is in the general neighborhood of the Sun. Looking to understand more about our neighbors and how they came to be, scientists collaborate with citizen scientists, volunteers from around […]
Posted April 16, 2024
Brown Dwarfs
Goddard Space Flight Center
Hubble Space Telescope
Missions
The Universe
It takes two to tango, but in the case of brown dwarfs that were once paired as binary systems, that relationship doesn’t last for very long, according to a recent survey from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Brown dwarfs are interstellar objects larger than Jupiter but smaller than the lowest-mass stars. They are born like stars […]
Posted March 21, 2024
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
Auroras
Brown Dwarfs
Goddard Space Flight Center
Heliophysics
Science & Research
Stars
The Universe
Infrared emission from methane suggests atmospheric heating by auroral processes. Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found a brown dwarf (an object more massive than Jupiter but smaller than a star) with infrared emission from methane, likely due to energy in its upper atmosphere.
Posted January 9, 2024
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
Astrophysics
Brown Dwarfs
Exoplanets
Goddard Space Flight Center
Missions
Science & Research
Stars
The Universe
Brown dwarfs are objects that straddle the dividing line between stars and planets. They form like stars, growing dense enough to collapse under their own gravity, but they never become dense and hot enough to begin fusing hydrogen and turn into a star. At the low end of the scale, some brown dwarfs are comparable […]
Posted December 13, 2023
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