Press Releases

  • June 2021: ASTRONOMERS PROBE LAYER-CAKE STRUCTURE OF BROWN DWARF’S ATMOSPHERE: Researchers used the giant W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to observe a nearby brown dwarf in infrared light. Unlike Jupiter, the young brown dwarf is still so hot it glows from the inside out, and looks like a carved Halloween pumpkin. Because the brown dwarf has scattered clouds, light shining up from deep down in the dwarf’s atmosphere fluctuates, which the researchers measured. They found that the dwarf’s atmosphere has a layer-cake structure with clouds having different composition at different altitudes.
Cloud Structure of a L3 Young Brown Dwarf

  • May 2019: Mapping Cloud on a Distant World: Nearby, cool dwarfs offer us the unique opportunity to learn more about the atmospheres of planetary-mass bodies. In a new study, Hubble observations shed some light on the clouds of one such object.
Artist’s impression of a brown dwarf with patchy clouds. A new study has discovered evidence of clouds on an extremely cool, planetary-mass dwarf. [NASA/JPL]