PIA21475: Brown Dwarf Weather (Artist's Concept)


Brown Dwarf Weather (Artist’s Concept)

Caption:

This artist's concept shows what the weather might look like on cool star-like bodies known as brown dwarfs. These giant balls of gas start out life like stars, but lack the mass to sustain nuclear fusion at their cores, and instead, fade and cool with time.

Observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggest that most brown dwarfs are roiling with one or more planet-size storms akin to Jupiter's "Great Red Spot."

Background Info:

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Spitzer, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Jupiter
System Jupiter
Target Type Planet
Mission Spitzer Space Telescope
Instrument Host
Host Type
Instrument
Detector
Extra Keywords Artwork, Atmosphere, Color, Infrared, Storm
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2014-01-06
Date in Caption
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Western Ontario/Stony Brook University
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21475
Identifier PIA21475