PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA07335: Birth of an Unusual Planetary System (Artist Concept)
 Target Name:  OTS 44
 Mission:  Spitzer Space Telescope
 Product Size:  3000 x 2400 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  California Institute of Technology 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA07335.tif (11.05 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA07335.jpg (371.7 kB)

Click on image above for all movie download options

Original Caption Released with Image:

This artist's animation shows a brown dwarf surrounded by a swirling disc of planet-building dust. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope spotted such a disc around a surprisingly low-mass brown dwarf, or "failed star." The brown dwarf, called OTS 44, is only 15 times the size of Jupiter, making it the smallest brown dwarf known to host a planet-forming, or protoplanetary disc.

Astronomers believe that this unusual system will eventually spawn planets. If so, they speculate that OTS 44's disc has enough mass to make one small gas giant and a few Earth-sized rocky planets.

OTS 44 is about 2 million years old. At this relatively young age, brown dwarfs are warm and appear reddish in color. With age, they grow cooler and darker.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2005-02-08