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Science 4 January 2002:
Vol. 295. no. 5552, pp. 64 - 65
DOI: 10.1126/science.295.5552.64
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The Runts of the Cosmic Litter

Robert Irion

Brown dwarfs and other substellar bodies behave like giant planets, but most of them may form like stars. On the other hand, a few of the scores of known planets outside our solar system look more like brown dwarfs than planets. And some free-floating "planetary-mass objects" as light as 5 Jupiter masses have surfaced in surveys of young star clusters, the birthplaces of which are impossible to trace. Astronomers are beginning to suspect that brown dwarfs can form in either of two different ways: from very large planets or very small stars.

A Web supplement including links to previous Science reviews, articles, and special issues related to star formation, and to a wide variety of Web resources related to the special issue's themes, can be found at www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/starformation/index.shtml.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)