Is a brown dwarf a star or a planet?

A brown dwarf is, by definition, a star which is so small that thermonuclear fusion is just barely able to get started in the core of the star to make it a full-fledged self-luminous body. The masses of such stars are about 0.04 times the mass of the Sun, or about 20 - 30 times the mass of Jupiter.


Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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