A brown dwarf was a stellar object that had characteristics of both a star and a gas giant.
In 2152 the Enterprise NX-01 was on course to investigate a brown dwarf planetary system when the ship was infested by a symbiotic lifeform and the investigation was interrupted. (ENT: "Vox Sola")
The Finibus system contained a brown dwarf, which in 2259 was in the process of being consumed by the system's black hole and was surrounded by a volatile gas cloud. In that year, the USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain Christopher Pike, used the brown dwarf's thick atmosphere to hide from three Gorn hunters and a destroyer; one hunter was crushed by the atmospheric pressure while attempting to pursue the Enterprise toward the dwarf's center. (SNW: "Memento Mori")
According to Data in 2365, the abundance of dysprosium in a brown dwarf star was different than regular stars, when factored with terbium, holmium, erbium, and europium. (TNG: "Manhunt")
![Finibus brown dwarf](https://cdn.statically.io/img/static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/0/05/Finibus_brown_dwarf.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/100?cb=20220529170355&path-prefix=en)
A brown dwarf in the Finibus system
A brown dwarf, as described by the Star Trek Encyclopedia, 4th ed., vol. 1, p. 108, was a "celestial object similar to a star, but with insufficient mass to generate a star's powerful nuclear reactions. Because a brown dwarf might glow with only feeble infrared light, it can be difficult to detect across interstellar distances."
External links[]
- Brown dwarf at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
- Brown dwarf at Wikipedia