The inclusion or exclusion of items from this list or length of this list is disputed. Please discuss this issue on the talk page.(August 2015)
This is a list of notable brown dwarfs. These are objects that have masses between heavy gas giants and low-mass stars.[1] The first isolated brown dwarf discovered was Teide 1 in 1995.[2] The first brown dwarf discovered orbiting a star was Gliese 229 B, also discovered in 1995.[3] The first brown dwarf found to have a planet was 2M1207, discovered in 2004.[4] As of 2015[update], more than 2,800 brown dwarfs have been identified.[5] An isolated object with less than about 13 Jupiter masses is technically a sub-brown dwarf or rogue planet.
Because the mass of a brown dwarf is between that of a planet and that of a star, they have also been called planetars or hyperjovians. Various catalog designations have been used to name brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs with names ending in a letter such as B, C, or D are in orbit around a primary star; those with names ending in a lower-case letter such as b, c, or d, may be exoplanets (see Exoplanet naming convention).
Some exoplanets, especially those detected by radial velocity, can turn out to be brown dwarfs if their mass is higher than originally thought: most have only known minimum masses because the inclination of their orbit is not known. Examples include HD 114762 b (>11.68 MJ), Pi Mensae b (>10.312 MJ), and NGC 2423-3 b (>10.6 MJ).
A complete list of more than 3000 ultracool dwarfs, which includes brown dwarfs and low-mass stars, is being maintained by astronomers. It is called the UltracoolSheet.[6] The same team also produced a list of 1000 ultracool dwarfs with their mass being determined.[7]
A stellar remnant can be for example a white dwarf, a pulsar or a black hole. Objects with a mass of a brown dwarf, but with a history of mass-transfer might not be brown dwarfs. If they exist as a period bouncer around a white dwarf they are thought to once have been stars and are today "brown dwarf-like objects".[14] Objects around black widow pulsars on the other hand are thought to be white dwarfs that lost mass to the pulsar and therefore will differ in composition and density compared to brown dwarfs.[15] This list is sorted after the discovery year.
^Mohanty, Subhanjoy; Jayawardhana, Ray; Huelamo, Nuria; Mamajek, Eric (2007). "The Planetary Mass Companion 2MASS 1207−3932B: Temperature, Mass, and Evidence for an Edge-on Disk". The Astrophysical Journal. 657 (2): 1064–1091. arXiv:astro-ph/0610550. Bibcode:2007ApJ...657.1064M. doi:10.1086/510877. S2CID17326111.
^Wm. Robert Johnson (27 December 2015). "List of Brown Dwarfs". Johnston's Archive. Retrieved 25 March 2017. (2,850 confirmed; 930 candidates)
^Filippazzo, Joseph C.; Rice, Emily L.; Faherty, Jacqueline; Cruz, Kelle L.; Van Gordon, Mollie M.; Looper, Dagny L.; Béjar, V. J. S.; Díaz-Sánchez, A.; Villó, I.; Oscoz, A.; López, R.; Rodríguez, L. F.; Piqueras, J. (2015). "Fundamental Parameters and Spectral Energy Distributions of Young and Field Age Objects with Masses Spanning the Stellar to Planetary Regime". The Astrophysical Journal. 810 (2): 158. arXiv:1508.01767. Bibcode:2015ApJ...810..158F. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/810/2/158. S2CID89611607.
^Kirkpatrick, J. Davy; Gelino, Christopher R.; Cushing, Michael C.; Mace, Gregory N.; Griffith, Roger L.; Skrutskie, Michael F.; Marsh, Kenneth A.; Wright, Edward L.; Eisenhardt, Peter R.; McLean, Ian S.; Mainzer, Amy K.; Burgasser, Adam J.; Tinney, Chris G.; Parker, Stephen; Salter, Graeme (2012). "Further Defining Spectral Type "Y" and Exploring the Low-mass End of the Field Brown Dwarf Mass Function". The Astrophysical Journal. 753 (2): 156. arXiv:1205.2122. Bibcode:2012ApJ...753..156K. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/753/2/156. S2CID119279752.
^Mohanty, Subhanjoy; Jayawardhana, Ray; Huelamo, Nuria; Mamajek, Eric; Cushing, Michael C.; Mace, Gregory; Mendez, Rene A.; Tinney, C. G.; Jones, Hugh R. A. (2014). "WISEP J061135.13-041024.0AB: A J-Band Flux Reversal Binary at the L/T Transition". arXiv:1405.0511 [astro-ph.SR].