Scientists have discovered a puzzling object in a distant star system that defies classification.
Hear us out. The object in question orbits a brown dwarf. A brown dwarf is a substellar type of object that larger than a gas giant but smaller than the smallest stars. And this brown dwarf, in turn, orbits the system’s main star.
Since the newly-identified object doesn’t orbit a planet, it technically isn’t a “moon” by any normal definition, but it’s not clearly a planet either, making its classification elusive.
“This system is somewhat hard to define using Solar-System-based words like ‘planet’ and ‘moon,’” said European Southern Observatory (ESO) student Kevin Hoy, lead author of a new study published in the journal Nature, in a statement.
