This artist's conception shows the relative size of a hypothetical brown
dwarf-planetary system (below) compared to our own solar system.
A brown dwarf is a cool or "failed" star, which lacks the mass to ignite
and shine like our Sun. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope set its infrared
eyes on an extraordinarily low-mass brown dwarf called OTS 44 and found a
swirling disc of planet-building dust. At only 15 times the mass of
Jupiter, OTS 44 is the smallest known brown dwarf to host a
planet-forming, or protoplanetary, disc.
Astronomers believe that this unusual system will eventually spawn
planets. If so, they speculate that OTS 44's disc has enough mass to
make one small gas giant and a few Earth-sized rocky planets.
Examples of these possible planets are depicted at the bottom of this
picture, circling a low-mass brown dwarf. Above, the bodies of our own
solar system have been drawn to the same scale. In each system, the
terrestrial planets have been enlarged and the distances between the
planets and their parent bodies have been scaled down for easier viewing.
