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Royalty-free astronomy stock photo of a brown dwarf surrounded by a swirling disc of planet-building dust. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope spotted such a disc around a surprisingly low-mass brown dwarf, or "failed star." The brown dwarf, called OTS 44, is only 15 times the size of Jupiter, making it the smallest brown dwarf known to host a planet-forming, or protoplanetary disc. Astronomers believe that this unusual system will eventually spawn planets. If so, they speculate that OTS 44’s disc has enough mass to make one small gas giant and a few Earth-sized rocky planets. OTS 44 is about 2 million years old. At this relatively young age, brown dwarfs are warm and appear reddish in color. With age, they grow cooler and darker. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech [0003-0710-2308-3391] by 0003
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Keywords
astronomy, brown dwarf, chamaeleon, failed star, failed stars, in space, nasa, national aeronautics and space administration, ots 44, outer space, planet, planets, space, star, stars, universe
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