Article: A weighty issue: Discovery unlocks a mystery about 'fallen' stars.

Byline: Susanne Rust

Mar. 16--Floating between the knees of the constellation Orion lies a cloud known as the Orion Nebula, where scientists have discovered two brown dwarfs circling one another in a waltz that has continued for a million years. The discovery of these celestial dancers a University of Wisconsin-Madison astronomer and his former student has given scientists critical information about these nebulous bodies, which are neither star nor planet but somewhere in between. Until now, these "fallen" or "aborted" stars have eluded scientists who wanted to quantify their mass. "Mass determines the destiny of stars," said Keivan Stassun, lead ...

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