The Fonz Of Cosmology: Ultra-Cool Companion Gets Planets Noticed Too

Giant planets have diverse chemistry; Jupiter, for example, first formed as a large solid core and then then accreted gas from the disk around it, which led to a different chemistry in its outer layers. When the Galileo spacecraft entered Jupiter’s atmosphere in 1995, it found the proportion of heavier elements (astronomers call these ‘metals’) to be three times higher than in the Sun. Brown dwarfs, around the same size, are instead star-like objects with insufficient mass to ignite hydrogen fusion in their cores. Over time they cool to temperatures of just a few hundred degrees. Like stars, they formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud a few hundred light years across. read more

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