Figure 1
This graph of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows that an
extraordinarily low-mass brown dwarf, or "failed star," is circled by a
disc of planet-building dust. The brown dwarf, called OTS 44, is only 15
times the mass of Jupiter, making it the smallest known brown dwarf to
host a planet-forming disc.
Spitzer was able to see this unusual disc by measuring its infrared
brightness. Whereas a brown dwarf without a disc (red dashed line)
radiates infrared light at shorter wavelengths, a brown dwarf with a disc
(orange line) gives off excess infrared light at longer wavelengths. This
surplus light comes from the disc itself and is represented here as a
yellow dotted line. Actual data points from observations of OTS 44 are
indicated with orange dots. These data were acquired using Spitzer's
infrared array camera.
