This is a list of

brown dwarf Brown dwarfs (also called failed stars) are substellar objects that are not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion of ordinary hydrogen ( 1H) into helium in their cores, unlike a main-sequence star. Instead, they have a mass between the most ...

s. These are objects that have masses between heavy

gas giant A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Gas giants are also called failed stars because they contain the same basic elements as a star. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term "gas giant" ...

s and low-mass

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

s. The first isolated brown dwarf discovered was

Teide 1 Teide 1 was the first brown dwarf to be verified, in 1995. It is located in the Pleiades open star cluster, approximately from Earth. This object is more massive than a planet (), but less massive than a star (0.0544 MSun). The radius ...

in 1995. The first brown dwarf discovered orbiting a star was

Gliese 229 Gliese 229 (also written as Gl 229 or GJ 229) is a binary system composed of a red dwarf and the first brown dwarf seen by astronomers, 18.8 light years away in the constellation Lepus. The primary component has 58% of the mass of t ...

B, also discovered in 1995. The first brown dwarf found to have a planet was

2M1207 2M1207, 2M1207A or 2MASSW J12073346–3932539 is a brown dwarf located in the constellation Centaurus; a companion object, 2M1207b, may be the first extrasolar planetary-mass companion to be directly imaged, and is the first discovered ...

, discovered in 2004. , more than 2,800 brown dwarfs have been identified. An isolated object with less than about 13

Jupiter mass Jupiter mass, also called Jovian mass, is the unit of mass equal to the total mass of the planet Jupiter. This value may refer to the mass of the planet alone, or the mass of the entire Jovian system to include the moons of Jupiter. Jupiter is b ...

es is technically a

sub-brown dwarf 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 limi ...

rogue planet A rogue planet (also termed a free-floating planet (FFP), interstellar, nomad, orphan, starless, unbound or wandering planet) is an interstellar object of planetary-mass, therefore smaller than fusors (stars and brown dwarfs) and without a h ...

. Because the mass of a brown dwarf is between that of a

planet A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a you ...

and that of a

, they have also been called planetars or hyperjovians. Various catalog designations have been used to name brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs with names ending in a letter such as B, C, or D are in orbit around a primary star; those with names ending in a lower-case letter such as b, c, or d, may be

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...

s (see Exoplanet naming convention). Some exoplanets, especially those detected by

radial velocity The radial velocity or line-of-sight velocity, also known as radial speed or range rate, of a target with respect to an observer is the temporal rate of change, rate of change of the distance or Slant range, range between the two points. It is e ...

, can turn out to be brown dwarfs if their mass is higher than originally thought: most have only known

minimum mass In astronomy, minimum mass is the lower-bound calculated mass of observed objects such as planets, stars and binary systems, nebulae, and black holes. Minimum mass is a widely cited statistic for extrasolar planets detected by the radial veloc ...

es because the

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

of their

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a p ...

is not known. Examples include

HD 114762 b HD 114762 b is a small red dwarf star, in the HD 114762 system, formerly thought to be a gas giant, massive gaseous exoplanet, extrasolar planet, approximately away in the constellation of Coma Berenices. This optically undetected compani ...

(>11.68 M_J), Pi Mensae b (>10.312 M_J), and

NGC 2423-3 b NGC 2423-3b is an extrasolar planet approximately 2498 light-years away in the constellation of Puppis. The planet was announced in 2007 to be orbiting the red giant star NGC 2423-3 (which in turn is part of the NGC 2423 open cluster). T ...

(>10.6 M_J).

Confirmed brown dwarfs orbiting primary stars

''Sorted by increasing

right ascension Right ascension (abbreviated RA; symbol ) is the angular distance of a particular point measured eastward along the celestial equator from the Sun at the March equinox to the (hour circle of the) point in question above the earth. When paired w ...

of the parent star. Brown dwarfs within a system sorted by increasing

orbital period The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets ...

.'' ''Some brown dwarfs listed could still be massive planets.''

Unconfirmed brown dwarfs

''Sorted by increasing

of the parent star. Brown dwarfs within a system sorted by increasing

.'' ''Some brown dwarfs listed could still be massive planets.''

Field brown dwarfs

''Data updated from and merged from previous tables''

Former brown dwarfs

References

External links