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NASA Telescope Uncovers Role of Brown Dwarfs in Forming Planets

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PASADENA, Calif., Oct. 24 -- A NASA telescope has detected for the first time the building blocks of planets around brown dwarfs, suggesting that these much colder and dimmer cousins to stars probably also "sow the seeds" of planets. Until now, the microscopic crystals that eventually collide to form planets have only been seen around stars and comets -- considered to be the remnants of our solar system.
Sowing the Seeds of Planets? This artist's concept shows microscopic crystals in the dusty disk surrounding a brown dwarf, or failed star. The crystals, composed of a green mineral found on Earth called olivine, are thought to help seed the formation of planets. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle [SSC])
The infrared (IR) spectrograph on NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope recently spotted tiny crystals and dust grains circling six brown dwarfs ranging in mass from about 40 to 70 times that of Jupiter and roughly 1 to 3 million years old, located 520 light years away in the Chamaeleon constellation. The crystals, composed of a green mineral commonly found on Earth known as olivine, are thought to eventually crystallize and clump together to form planets. Brown dwarfs, like stars, form from thick clouds of gas and dust, but they collapse under their own weight. Astronomers believe planets were born out of these disks of dust that surround young stars and brown dwarfs. Spitzer has observed many of these disks, which glow at IR wavelengths. The observations imply that brown dwarfs might be good targets for future planet-hunting missions, although astronomers don't know if life could exist on planets around brown dwarfs.

The Spitzer Space Telescope (formerly SIRTF, the Space Infrared Telescope Facility) was named for the late Lyman Spitzer Jr., a renowned astrophysicist who was the first person to propose the idea of placing a large telescope in space and was the driving force behind the development of the Hubble Space Telescope. The Spitzer Space Telescope was launched on Aug. 25, 2003. During its two-and-a-half-year mission, Spitzer is obtaining images and spectra by detecting the IR energy, or heat, radiated by objects in space between wavelengths of 3 and 180 µm (1 µm is one-millionth of a meter). Most of this radiation is blocked by the Earth's atmosphere and cannot be observed from the ground.


An artist's rendering of Spitzer against an infrared sky. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Consisting of a 0.85-m telescope and three cryogenically-cooled science instruments, Spitzer is the largest IR telescope ever launched into space. Its highly sensitive instruments provide a unique view of the universe and allow scientists to peer into regions of space that are hidden from optical telescopes because they are filled with vast, dense clouds of gas and dust which block traditional viewing methods. IR light, however can penetrate these clouds, allowing scientists to peer into regions of star formation, the centers of galaxies and into newly forming planetary systems. IR also provides information about the cooler objects in space, such as smaller stars which are too dim to be detected by their visible light, extrasolar planets and giant molecular clouds. Also, many molecules in space, including organic molecules, have their unique signatures in the IR.

A paper on the Spitzer's findings appears in the journal Science. Authors of the paper include University of Arizona, Tucson, astronomers Daniel Apai and Ilaria Pascucci; Jeroen Bouwman, Thomas Henning and Cornelis P. Dullemond of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany; and Antonella Natta of the Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Italy.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena manages the Spitzer mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Spitzer's infrared spectrograph, which made the observations, was built by Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

For more information, visit: www.spitzer.caltech.edu


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Published: October 2005
Glossary
astronomy
The scientific observation of celestial radiation that has reached the vicinity of Earth, and the interpretation of these observations to determine the characteristics of the extraterrestrial bodies and phenomena that have emitted the radiation.
infrared
Infrared (IR) refers to the region of the electromagnetic spectrum with wavelengths longer than those of visible light, but shorter than those of microwaves. The infrared spectrum spans wavelengths roughly between 700 nanometers (nm) and 1 millimeter (mm). It is divided into three main subcategories: Near-infrared (NIR): Wavelengths from approximately 700 nm to 1.4 micrometers (µm). Near-infrared light is often used in telecommunications, as well as in various imaging and sensing...
photonics
The technology of generating and harnessing light and other forms of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. The science includes light emission, transmission, deflection, amplification and detection by optical components and instruments, lasers and other light sources, fiber optics, electro-optical instrumentation, related hardware and electronics, and sophisticated systems. The range of applications of photonics extends from energy generation to detection to communications and...
spectrograph
An optical instrument for forming the spectrum of a light source and recording it on a film. The dispersing medium may be a prism or a diffraction grating. A concave grating requires no other means to form a sharp image of the slit on the film, but a plane grating or a prism requires auxiliary lenses or concave mirrors to act as image-forming means in addition to the dispersing element. Refracting prisms can be used only in parallel light, so a collimating lens is required before the prism and...
telescope
An afocal optical device made up of lenses or mirrors, usually with a magnification greater than unity, that renders distant objects more distinct, by enlarging their images on the retina.
astronomyBasic Sciencebrown dwarfsenergyinfraredIRNASANews & FeaturesphotonicsplanetssolarspacespectrographSpitzertelescope

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