Galaxy ‘full’ of brown dwarfs

At least 100 billion failed stars, or brown dwarfs, could be hidden within our galaxy, the Milky Way, astronomers believe.

The objects, bigger than planets but smaller than stars, are unable to sustain the kind of nuclear fusion reaction that powers the sun.

Because they are so faint and difficult to spot, all the brown dwarfs identified so far have been relatively close to Earth, within a distance of about 1,500 light years.

A new study of near and more distant star clusters has now found that the objects are likely to be widespread throughout the galaxy.

Dr Aleks Scholz, from St Andrews University, said: “We’ve found a lot of brown dwarfs in these clusters. And whatever the cluster type, the brown dwarfs are really common.”