brown dwarf
noun
: a celestial object that is much smaller than a normal star and has insufficient mass to sustain nuclear fusion but that is hot enough to radiate energy especially at infrared wavelengths
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After around a trillion years, total, have elapsed since the hot Big Bang, there won’t really be any galaxies left to view other than Milkdromeda, and the star-formation rate may be effectively zero, save for the rare merger of brown dwarfs that then cross the mass threshold to become stars.
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Big Think, 13 Mar. 2026
This is because, despite forming like stars from collapsing patches of overdense and cool gas, brown dwarfs fail to gather the mass needed to generate the temperatures and pressures in their cores needed to fuse hydrogen to helium.
—Robert Lea, Space.com, 6 Mar. 2026
This uncertainty, called mass–distance degeneracy, meant that earlier detections could not rule out heavier objects such as brown dwarfs.
—Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 3 Jan. 2026
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Big Think, 13 Mar. 2026
This is because, despite forming like stars from collapsing patches of overdense and cool gas, brown dwarfs fail to gather the mass needed to generate the temperatures and pressures in their cores needed to fuse hydrogen to helium.
—Robert Lea, Space.com, 6 Mar. 2026
This uncertainty, called mass–distance degeneracy, meant that earlier detections could not rule out heavier objects such as brown dwarfs.
—Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 3 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for brown dwarf
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“Brown dwarf.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brown%20dwarf. Accessed 21 Mar. 2026.
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