Thanks to NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) project and the Space Telescope Science Institute for supporting this video.

This video is about the line between Brown dwarfs and gas giant planets (aka super Jupiter's): does it exist? Is it the deuterium-burning threshold? Behavior? Metallicity? Formation? Or is there no meaningful scientific distinction, and are brown dwarfs and giant planets really all on a spectrum with no clear line between them?

REFERENCES

Giant planet and brown dwarf formation https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.7559

Exoplanets versus brown dwarfs: the CoRoT view and the future https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.00917

Defining and cataloging exoplanets: The exoplanet.eu database https://arxiv.org/abs/1106.0586

A Definition for Giant Planets Based on the Mass-Density Relationship
https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.05097

Spatial differences between stars and brown dwarfs: a dynamical origin? https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.7053v1

Hints for Small Disks around Very Low-Mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs
https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.01952

VLA observations of the disk around the young brown dwarf 2MASS J044427+2512 https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.07197


Support MinutePhysics on Patreon! http://www.patreon.com/minutephysics
Link to Patreon Supporters: http://www.minutephysics.com/supporters/

MinutePhysics is on twitter - @minutephysics
And facebook - http://facebook.com/minutephysics
And Google+ (does anyone use this any more?) - http://bit.ly/qzEwc6

Minute Physics provides an energetic and entertaining view of old and new problems in physics -- all in a minute!

Created by Henry Reich