COLLECTION NAME:
NASA Spitzer Space Telescope Collection
Record
Title:
Mini Solar System in the Making
Description:
This artist's concept shows a brown dwarf surrounded by a swirling disk of planet-building dust. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope spotted such a disk around a surprisingly low-mass brown dwarf, or "failed star."Ê 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 disk. Astronomers believe that this unusual system will eventually spawn planets. If so, they speculate that OTS 44's disk 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.
Release Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC)
Journal Article:
Spitzer Identification of the Least Massive Known Brown Dwarf with a Circumstellar Disk [ http://www.spitzer.… ]
facet_what:
Earth
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
Image #:
ssc2005-06b
UID:
SPD-SPITZ-ssc2005-06b
Link To Source
