Topic: brown dwarf

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brown dwarf

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
brown dwarf in astronomy, celestial body that is larger than a planet but does not have sufficient mass to convert hydrogen into helium via nuclear fusion as stars do. Also called "failed stars," brown dwarfs form in the same way as true stars (by the contraction of a swirling cloud of interstellar matter ). True stars have enough mass (greater than 0.084 times that of the sun) to compress their core until the increasing temperature and pressure ignite the hydrogen fusion reaction, but brown dwarfs have only a relatively short period of deuterium (heavy hydrogen) burning before they... Read more
failed star
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition see brown dwarf . Read more
MACHO
The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English MACHO / ˈmä ch ō; ˈma ch ō / • n. Astron. a compact object, such as a brown dwarf, a low-mass star, or a black hole, of a kind that is thought by some to constitute part of the dark matter in galactic halos. ORIGIN ... Read more

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What Is a Brown Dwarf?