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Astrophysics

Portrait of a dynamic neighbour

Nature volume 505, pages 625–626 (2014)Cite this article

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Brown dwarfs are celestial objects that lack the mass to become fully fledged stars. High-resolution maps of one such object add to the evidence that these exotic worlds have highly dynamic weather and climate. See Letter p.654

Humanity's study of stars and planets stretches back centuries, but our understanding of intermediate objects — brown dwarfs — is relatively primitive. Brown dwarfs are fluid, hydrogen-dominated objects that are generally presumed to form like stars, but that contain insufficient mass to fuse hydrogen into helium. As links between planets and stars, these dwarfs provide clues about the processes of star and planet formation, the physics of interior structure and the behaviour of atmospheres under exotic conditions. But because they are so far away, brown dwarfs are seen as only unresolved points of light in telescope images. So far, observations of these objects have all been measurements of the combined light from their Earth-facing hemisphere that preclude any detailed view of what they look like. That has now changed: on page 654 of this issue, Crossfield et al.1 present the first spatially resolved maps of the visible surface of a nearby brown dwarf.

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Figure 1: The Doppler imaging technique.

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  1. Adam P. Showman is in the Department of Planetary Sciences, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA.,

    Adam P. Showman

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  1. Adam P. Showman
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Correspondence to Adam P. Showman.

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Showman, A. Portrait of a dynamic neighbour. Nature 505, 625–626 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/505625a

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