Even brown dwarfs may grow rocky planets
Friday, November 30, 2012 - 07:11
in Astronomy & Space
(Phys.org)—Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array have for the first time found that the outer region of a dusty disc encircling a brown dwarf contains millimetre-sized solid grains like those found in denser discs around newborn stars. The surprising finding challenges theories of how rocky, Earth-scale planets form, and suggests that rocky planets may be even more common in the Universe than expected.