Brown dwarfs are stars less massive than the sun and unable to burn hydrogen. They comprise (at least in mass) a bridge between planets and stars, and astronomers think that they form and evolve in ways different from either planets or stars. Gravitational microlensing is an excellent method for detecting them because it does not depend on their light, which is dim, but rather their mass. When the path of light from a star passes by a brown dwarf acting as a lens, it is magnified into a distorte...
Brown dwarfs are stars less massive than the sun and unable to burn hydrogen. They comprise (at least in mass) a bridge between planets and stars, and astronomers think that they form and evolve in ways different from either planets or stars. Gravitational microlensing is an excellent method for detecting them because it does not depend on their light, which is dim, but rather their mass. When the path of light from a star passes by a brown dwarf acting as a lens, it is magnified into a distorte...
Share this Article
Recommended