PIX4572541: Brown dwarf & debris ring from an oblique perspective - Artist's view of a brown dwarf star about 60 times the mass of Jupiter, surrounded by a disc of dust and rocks. In the foreground, a primitive exoplanet enlighted by the star. A small, barren planet orbits obliquely to the plane of a massive set of concentric dust rings surrounding a brown dwarf of about 60 Jupiter masses. These rings are evocative of Saturn's famous rings of rock and ice, however there is likely no ice in the rings around this dwarf. Recent observations have revealed that some brown dwarfs may be surrounded by rings of dust. While the origin of these rings, and the brown dwarfs themselves, is unclear, it's thought that material from these rings may even coalesce into planets, providing some brown dwarfs with their own solar systems / Bridgeman Images
PIX4572553: Brown dwarf star Gliese 229 b - Brown dwarf Gliese 229 b - Artist view of the brown dwarf star Gliese 229B. Discovered in 1995 in the constellation Lievre at 18 years - light from Earth, this brown dwarf is 30 to 40 times more massive than Jupiter and is estimated to be 2 to 4 billion years old. Top left is the red dwarf star Gliese 229A. This is how the brown dwarf Gliese 229b might appear from a distance of about a half million miles. Glowing like a charcoal ember, Gliese 229 b was discovered in 1995 and is 19 light years from the Earth. This brown dwarf orbits the red dwarf Gliese 229A in the constellation Lepus. Gliese A can be seen shining dimly on the upper left. These two dwarfs are about four billion miles apart, about the same distance between Pluto and our sun. Gliese 229 b is believed to be 30 to 40 times more massive than the planet Jupiter, which is massive enough for Gliese 229 b to sustain deuterium fusion, but not enough mass to initiate hydrogen fusion like our Sun. As a result, Gliese 229 b radiates a temperature of only 1,300o F. It is believed to be two to four billion years old. Despite being so much more massive than the planet Jupiter, the diameter of this brown dwarf is believed to be actually slightly less than Jupiter's; Gliese 229 b's greater mass results in its overcoming the internal pressures that sustain Jupiter's greater volume / Bridgeman Images
PIX4573201: Planetary system around the star HD 69830 - Planetary System Around HD 69830 - Artist's view of three planets orbiting around the star HD 69830. This planetary system is the first detects around a star similar to the Sun that contains several planets whose mass is less than that of Jupiter. It seems that this system also has an asteroid belt. Using the ultra - precise HARPS spectrograph on Eso's 3.6 - m telescope at La Silla (Chile), a team of European astronomers have discovered that a nearby star is host to three Neptune - mass planets. The innermost planet is most likely rocky, while the outermost is the first known Neptune - mass planet to reside in the habitable zone. This unique system is likely further enriched by an asteroid belt. This view portaits a point of view inside the asteroid belt, which is assumed here to lie between the two outermost planets / Bridgeman Images
PIX4573338: Exoplanets around a red dwarf star - Exoplanets around a red dwarf star - Artist's view of extrasolar planets orbiting a red dwarf star. This artist's concept illustrates a young, red dwarf star surrounded by three planets. Such stars are dimmer and smaller than yellow stars like our sun, which makes them ideal targets for astronomers wishing to take images of planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets / Bridgeman Images
PIX4572917: Scenario of the formation of a star - Scenario of the formation of a star. From left to right: 1. Interstellar gas and dust cloud, zooming on a blood cell. 2. Contraction and warming of the blood cell. 3. The blood cell flattened around the young star. 4. young star. Left is a cloud of gaz and interstellar dust. Inside is a dark globule which will contract to create a rotating disk flattening, at the center of this disk, the stars ingnites / Bridgeman Images
PIX4575161: Jupiter seen from its satellite Europe - Illustration - Jupiter from Europa's surface - Illustration - Jupiter seen from the icy surface of the satellite Europe. Europa is Jupiter's fourth largest satellite and is slightly smaller than the Earth's Moon. Europa is believed to be composed of silicate rocks with a layer of water ice covering the entire surface. This image is inspired by recent discoveries on Europa of regions that look very much like pack - ice on Earth's polar seas during spring thaws. The perspective is from an altitude of several thousand feet. The large crater in the foreground is about a half - mile in diameter. It may be that beneath Europa's surface ice there is a layer of liquid water, perhaps as much as 30 miles deep. This subsurface “” ocean”” would be kept liquid by tidally generated heat / Bridgeman Images