Bedeviled by the ambiguity of brown dwarfs, astronomers have wavered between calling them super planets or failed stars. Lada said the new observations could put them firmly in the star camp. The observations last year at the European Southern Observatory in Chile revealed a group of brown dwarfs in a cluster of young stars in the constellation Orion, about 1,200 light years from the sun. The infrared observations suggested that about 60 of the roughly 100 brown dwarfs were ringed by disks of material. Another 20 are thought to have disks too dim to detect.
Disks are a hallmark of young stars and are believed to be regions of planet formation.
At least one brown dwarf orbits a star. Should Earth-size planets orbit brown dwarfs, they are likely cold, dark and inhospitable to life. Copyright 2001, The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP Online news report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Please read it.