The Enigmatic World of Brown Dwarfs: Failed Stars or Errant Planets?

Elena Manjavacas, Space Telescope Science Institute
During their formation, brown dwarfs did not manage to accrue enough mass to ignite hydrogen fusion, and hence, they are not stars. In addition, they generally do not orbit a star, making them also not planets. Existing in the gap between planets and stars, brown dwarfs can be curious beasts. Some have very low mass, down to the range of some giant exoplanets. Others have been found to have clouds in their atmospheres, just as the giant planets of our solar system. Dr. Manjavacas will introduce these enigmatic objects and will explain how the study of brown dwarfs will enlighten our understanding of giant exoplanets in the era of the James Webb Space Telescope.
- News from the Universe starts at 4:10
- Main talk starts at 10:05
Host: Frank Summers, Space Telescope Science Institute
Recorded live on Tuesday, January 9, 2024
More information: www.stsci.edu/public-lectures

[@SC-vq4zc]

Great presentation. Thank you for taking the time :)

[@ENKI7477]

Please upload more videos.

[@CarolynFahm]

Fascinating!

[@ENKI7477]

Kindly also upload your Tonight 's sky video for the month of February 2024.

[@alfredtetzlaf9163]

very interesting concepts of investigation - thank you for these insights!

[@EdWeibe]

yeah I'll hit LIKE on this.

[@Serenoj69]

Hmmm...she says brown dwarfs never, never, never, nevr fuse hydrogen. That to my knowledge is incorrect. Brown Dwarfs > 80 MJ do exist and at least one 90 MJ Brown Dwarf does fuse hydrogen in an unsteady way. So not in a steady way but these brown dwarfs are really as close to the boundary as you can get. Also for this reason, this BD does cool down (so it disappates more than it generates) but at a very slow pace. 50-100 K per 10^9 years. This particular BD is 10* 10^9 yr old (10 billion years) but still is 2300K. That is in fact still warmer than some L-type stars are. The coolest main sequence star we know of is 1939 K. So that is a lot cooler than this old, very low metallicity Brown Dwarf. Also I think some of the coldest main sequence stars do have clouds. They can already form at the M/L-type boundary and in the L-types we could have corundum clouds, Mg Silicate clouds. So the coldest manin sequence stars have clouds and I believe on even had a storm on it.

[@ArtDocHound]

🌞🤎

[@S....]

Please rethink removing theose first 4 minutes with all those contact infos etc., it's annoying as hell and it seems like you guys are stuck in the 90s...

[@ShcnqmXkpwmc1]

😢

[@S....]

@@EchoesDistant Again? Ok, let me rethink it.

[@mikaelbiilmann6826]

10 minutes in and not a word about brown dwarfs... I give up.. later..