Could This Be A Super-Planet That Scientists Haven’t Seen Before?

Meet ‘Elegast,’ a cold, faint “super-planet” that scientists have detected using a new approach for the first time ever.

Transcript

00:00What's not quite a star and not quite a planet, but actually hovers somewhere in between?

00:07Meet Elagast, a cold, faint super planet that scientists have detected using a new approach

00:12for the first time ever.

00:13Elagast is more massive than the largest planets, but not quite big enough to burn hydrogen

00:18in its core like a star.

00:19Because of that, it's what's known as a failed star, or a brown dwarf to be precise.

00:24Brown dwarfs are typically hard to find because they're smaller, colder, and dimmer than

00:27normal stars.

00:28They rarely show up on infrared, however with Elagast, scientists using the LOFAR radio

00:33telescope in the Netherlands have now discovered they can locate brown dwarfs via the light

00:37they emit at radio wavelengths.

00:39The research, published in the astrophysical journal Letters, could help scientists detect

00:42other elusive substellar objects, like gas giant exoplanets.