File:Sub-brown-dwarf.jpg
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Summary[edit]
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English: A sub-brown dwarf or planetary-mass brown dwarf is an astronomical object that formed in the same manner as stars and brown dwarfs (i.e. through the collapse of a gas cloud) but that has a planetary mass, therefore by definition below the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium (about 13 MJ). Some researchers call them rogue planets whereas others call them planetary-mass brown dwarfs. They are sometimes categorized as Y spectral class brown dwarfs.
Sub-brown dwarfs are formed in the manner of stars, through the collapse of a gas cloud (perhaps with the help of photo-erosion) but there is no consensus amongst astronomers on whether the formation process should be taken into account when classifying an object as a planet. Free-floating sub-brown dwarfs can be observationally indistinguishable from rogue planets, which originally formed around a star and were ejected from orbit. Similarly, a sub-brown dwarf formed free-floating in a star cluster may be captured into orbit around a star, making distinguishing sub-brown dwarfs and large planets also difficult. A definition for the term "sub-brown dwarf" was put forward by the IAU Working Group on Extra-Solar Planets (WGESP), which defined it as a free-floating body found in young star clusters below the lower mass cut-off of brown dwarfs. The smallest mass of gas cloud that could collapse to form a sub-brown dwarf is about 1 Jupiter mass (MJ). This is because to collapse by gravitational contraction requires radiating away energy as heat and this is limited by the opacity of the gas. There is no consensus whether companions of stars and companions of brown dwarfs should be considered sub-brown dwarfs or planets. |
| Date | |
| Source | Own work |
| Author | Pablo Carlos Budassi |
Planet concept illustrated especially for Wikimedia Commons by Pablo Carlos Budassi. Source: https://www.pablocarlosbudassi.com/2021/02/planet-types.html Background image by ESO/Serge Brunier: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ESO_-_Milky_Way.jpg Suggestions for improving this image are welcome: pablocarlosbudassi@gmail.com
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| current | 16:40, 15 August 2023 | | 1,080 × 1,080 (450 KB) | Celestialobjects (talk | contribs) | Uploaded own work with UploadWizard |
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