8. Clouds of Water
Found Year: 2014
Who Found It: Penn State University’s Kevin Luhman
Location: 7.3 Earthly light-years away
Astronomers at Penn State found water ice clouds in 2014 on an object that was only 7.3 light years from Earth. That is less than twice the distance of the nearest star system to the sun, Alpha Centauri. The first known sightings of ice clouds outside of our solar system are these ones.
Clouds of Water ©Shutterstock/pixelparticle
A failed star the size of Jupiter is surrounded by clouds; it is a brown dwarf star because it has so little mass that it cannot support nuclear processes. Because it sheds light on how cool massive planets orbit other suns, this discovery is significant. These water clouds obscure a brown dwarf planet that is warmer than Jupiter but somewhat colder than the mean temperature of Earth.
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