A Brown Dwarf in the Desert
Today’s authors found a unique occupant of the “brown dwarf desert,” on an extremely close orbit around its M dwarf host.
Today’s authors found a unique occupant of the “brown dwarf desert,” on an extremely close orbit around its M dwarf host.
Are there ways of forming planets other than core accretion? Today we throw it back to an old paper that explores this exact question!
Violent collisions give rise to some of the densest, most massive planets in our galaxy.
According to one theory of planet formation, the secret to forming massive planets is through itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny pebbles of dust. In today’s astrobite, we explore what sort of planets these little pebbles could form.
Recently, it has been proposed that pebbles play a crucial in the formation of rocky cores that are large enough to accrue a large atmosphere and become gas giants like Jupiter. Do strong magnetic winds make things more difficult?
Mini-Neptunes are among the most common type of planet in the galaxy. Are they as easy to build as we might think?