Brown Dwarf - Planets Around Brown Dwarfs

Planets Around Brown Dwarfs

The planetary-mass objects 2M1207b, GQ Lupi b and 2MASS J044144 that are orbiting brown-dwarfs may have formed by cloud collapse rather than accretion and so may be sub-brown dwarfs rather than planets.

Disks around brown dwarfs have been found to have many of the same features as disks around stars; therefore, it is expected that there will be accretion-formed planets around brown dwarfs. Given the small mass of brown dwarf disks, most planets will be terrestrial planets rather than gas giants. If a giant planet orbits a brown dwarf across our line of sight then since they have approximately the same diameter this would give a large signal for detection by transit. The accretion zone for planets around a brown dwarf is very close to the brown dwarf itself, so tidal forces would have a strong effect.

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