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NASA's Webb Identifies Tiniest Free-Floating Brown Dwarf

Release date: Wednesday, December 13, 2023 10:00:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

NASA's Webb Identifies Tiniest Free-Floating Brown Dwarf



Discovery helps answer question: How small can you go when forming stars?

Brown dwarfs are sometimes called failed stars, since they form like stars through gravitational collapse, but never gain enough mass to ignite nuclear fusion. The smallest brown dwarfs can overlap in mass with giant planets. In a quest to find the smallest brown dwarf, astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have found the new record-holder: an object weighing just three to four times the mass of Jupiter.



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Find additional articles, images, and videos at WebbTelescope.org



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