The discovery of brown dwarfs

Not all stars are as big as normal stars, they just don't posses enough mass or a high enough temperature, not enough pressure in there core to start of major nuclear fusion reactions, stuff like that. These bodies continue to exist in space, but they are very hard to see because there temperatures and their brightness is much less than the stars that burn brightly- they are known as brown dwarf stars.

The first brown dwarf to be discovered was Gliese 229b in 1994. It is thought to be about 20 and 50 times the size of the planet Jupiter.


In 2011, what might be the coolest brown dwarf observed, its about 75 light years away from earth. Its called CFBDSIR 1458+10b and it has a temperature of around 90 degrees- about the same heat as fresh cup of tea!!!