A newly discovered star system is breaking records — and helping scientists unravel the mysteries of an extreme type of planet known as hot Jupiters. In a paper published Aug. 14 in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers describe how the system could help further our understanding of worlds beyond our solar system.
The binary system, located 1,400 light-years away, consists of a "white dwarf" and a "brown dwarf." White dwarfs are the crystalline cores of large stars that ran out of fuel and collapsed under their own gravity. Brown dwarfs, meanwhile, blur the line between planets and stars. They are more massive than gas giant planets but don't have quite enough fuel to ignite a stellar fusion reaction in their cores — which is why they're often referred to as "failed stars."
