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Mini-Me' Solar System |
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by NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC) |
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This artist's conception shows the relative size of a |
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hypothetical brown dwarf-planetary system (below) |
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compared to our own solar system. A brown dwarf is a cool |
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or "failed" star, which lacks the mass to ignite and |
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shine like our Sun. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope set |
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its infrared eyes on an extraordinarily low-mass brown |
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dwarf called OTS 44 and found a swirling disk of planet- |
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building dust. At only 15 times the mass of Jupiter, OTS |
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44 is the smallest known brown dwarf to host a planet- |
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forming, or protoplanetary, disk. Astronomers believe |
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that this unusual system will eventually spawn planets. |
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If so, they speculate that OTS 44's disk has enough mass |
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to make one small gas giant and a few Earth-sized rocky |
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planets. Examples of these possible planets are depicted |
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at the bottom of this picture, circling a low-mass brown |
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dwarf. Above, the bodies of our own solar system have |
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been drawn to the same scale. In each system, the |
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terrestrial planets have been enlarged and the distances |
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between the planets and their parent bodies have been |
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scaled down for easier viewing. |
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Date Published: 2009-10-06 05:39:39 |
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Identifier: SPITZ-ssc2005-06c |
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Item Size: 205756 |
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Media Type: image |
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# Topics |
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What -- Sun |
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What -- Spitzer Space Telescope |
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What -- OTS |
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What -- Jupiter |
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What -- Earth |
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# Collections |
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nasa |
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spitzerspacetelescopecollection |
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# Uploaded by |
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@bonniereal |
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