Brown dwarf

Scientists in Europe and Hawaii have scored a world's first by detecting a "super-planet," also known as a cold brown dwarf, using a radio telescope. Located 212 light-years away, BDR J1750+3809 may help in the search for habitable exoplanets.

Using polarized light, astronomers have detected signs of cloud bands in the atmosphere of a brown dwarf far beyond the solar system. It turns out that these gassy giants have a similar appearance to Jupiter, and the same kind of wild weather.

Astronomers have discovered a rare superflare more powerful than anything observed on our Sun in modern times, erupting from a small, cold star roughly the size of the planet Jupiter.

A brown dwarf was recently downgraded to planet status (albeit a huge one), and now astronomers have discovered that it generates an enormous magnetic field, which could provide a new tool in the search for exoplanets.

You might have a pretty clear mental picture of what a planet is, but the official definition is surprisingly contentious. Now, an astrophysicist from Johns Hopkins University has proposed a revision to the definition of a planet, to help differentiate gas giants from brown dwarfs.

When you're dealing with astronomical bodies that are light years away from you, sometimes classifications can be tricky. That seems to be the case with SIMP0136, an object located in a 200-million-year-old group of stars called Carina-Near.

An international team of astronomers from the US, Europe, Chile, and South Africa have identified a star system that most likely passed through the outer edge of our solar system at a distance of 0.8 light years some 70,000 years ago.

Astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered a dim star-like “brown dwarf” about 7.2 light years from Earth that's colder than the North Pole.

PSO J318.5-22 is an exoplanet discovered this year by astronomers at the University of Hawaii that is floating through interstellar space without a parent star and is one of the smallest free-floating objects seen outside of the Solar System.

A binary stellar system consisting of a pair of brown dwarf stars has been discovered at a distance of only 6.5 light years, making these the fourth and fifth closest stars to the Sun.