PLANET OR FAILED STAR? NASA'S HUBBLE TELESCOPEPHOTOGRAPHS ONE OF THE SMALLEST STELLAR COMPANIONS EVER SEEN (STScI-PR06-31)

FOR RELEASE: 1:00 pm (EDT) September 7, 2006

Donna Weaver/Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
(Phone: 410-338-4493/4514; E-mail: or )

Kevin Luhman
Penn State University, University Park, Pa.
(Phone: 814-863-4957; E-mail: )

Barbara K. Kennedy (PIO)
Penn State University, University Park, Pa.
(Phone: 814-863-4682; E-mail: )


PRESS RELEASE NO.: STScI-PR06-31

PLANET OR FAILED STAR? NASA'S HUBBLE TELESCOPE PHOTOGRAPHS
ONE OF SMALLEST STELLAR COMPANIONS EVER SEEN

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have photographed one of
the smallest objects ever seen around a normal star beyond our Sun. Weighing in
at 12 times the mass of Jupiter, the object is small enough to be a planet.
The conundrum is that it's also large enough to be a brown dwarf, a failed
star. The Hubble observation of the diminutive companion to the low-mass
red dwarf star CHXR 73 is a dramatic reminder that astronomers do not
have a consensus in deciding which objects orbiting other stars are truly
planets -- even though they have at last agreed on how they will apply the
definition of "planet" to objects inside our solar system. The team's result
will appear in the Sept. 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

To see and read more about CHXR 73 on the Web, visit::
http://hubblesite.org/news/2006/31
http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/Luhman9-2006.htm


The Hubble Space Telescope is an international cooperative project
between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Space Telescope Science
Institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for
Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington.

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