Jupiter may be the bully planet of our solar system because it’s the most massive planet, but it’s actually a runt compared to many of the giant planets found around other stars.
These alien worlds, called super-Jupiters, weigh up to 13 times Jupiter’s mass. Astronomers have analyzed the composition of some of these monsters, but it has been difficult to study their atmospheres in detail because these gas giants get lost in the glare of their parent stars.
Researchers, however, have a substitute: the atmospheres of brown dwarfs, so-called failed stars that are up to 80 times Jupiter’s mass. These hefty objects form out of a collapsing cloud of gas, as stars do, but lack the mass to become hot enough to sustain nuclear fusion in their cores, which powers stars. [Read more…] about Astronomers probe layer-cake structure of brown dwarf’s atmosphere