Artist’s Illustration of Brown Dwarfs Surrounding the Milky Way

This illustration depicts the population of brown dwarfs in and around the Milky Way that could be detected by Rubin Observatory. Too big to be planets and too small to be stars, these objects have remained relatively unchanged since they formed in the early Universe. Rubin Observatory’s ten-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time will detect thousands of previously unseen, faint brown dwarfs, vastly increasing the numbers of these ancient relics available for scientists to study, and unlocking clues to the Milky Way’s formation and evolution.

Alt text: An illustration of several faint brown dwarfs surrounding a galaxy, viewed from a perspective slightly above the disk. The galaxy occupies the upper left quadrant of the image as a glowing disk extending out of view. The galaxy’s center is a bright yellow glow in the upper left. The bright center rapidly fades to a more subtle glow in the outskirts of the galaxy. Dark dust clouds spiral outward from the center and obscure some of the glow. Two fully illustrated brown dwarfs are visible at the center of the image and to the left, glowing red-orange and with horizontal stripes representing bands of clouds. Several reddish points of varying sizes dot the galaxy farther away, representing the ancient brown dwarfs that could be detectable by Rubin Observatory. The background is black sprinkled with the white pinpricks of distant galaxies.