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radiate any heat or light anymore. So while brown dwarfs are not ‘true’ Early explorers dubbed star systems
Such objects should by all means be stars, they are thought to share the containing a primary brown dwarf
next to impossible to detect, except fate of most low-mass stars. One of ‘dark systems’, and whether the term
maybe through gravitational astron- the main differences is that, because chosen was deliberately accurate or
omy or — as is more usual since the they don’t blow up, eject their masses just for drama is unknown. But it’s
invention of the frame shift drive — by into interstellar space, to be other- close to the truth for the future of
‘frame shift astronomy’. None have wise consumed by stellar processes, these bodies.
been discovered to date. their ‘dead mass’ does not add to the
rejuvenation or recycling of the inter-
stellar medium, which is the basis for
a new generation of stars to be born.
One colloquial description
is that brown dwarfs are
stars that “didn’t quite
make it,” and while that’s
not very scientific it is
quite accurate.
What Are Brown Dwarfs?
Text: Andrew Gaspurr
Images: Exorcist, Martin Shepard,
Zer0axis
Design: Donald Duck
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