If astronomers' theory is correct, Jupiter's big brother could have a dusky disk around it. This finding was presented recently at the 208th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, the team of researchers were composed of Subhanjoy Mohanty, Ray Jayawardhana, Nuria Huélamo and Eric Mamajek. All astronomers come from different academic institutions.

The team studied a planetary mass object known as 2MASS1207-3932B (which has an abbreviation of 2M1207B), which is located about 170 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Centaurus.

The object orbits a tiny brown dwarf star at a separation of about 3.7 billion miles. That separation is much larger than typical for binary brown dwarf systems. The wide separation may indicate that the duo formed in relative isolation, far from passing stars that could have pulled them apart.

Observations by the team showed that the brown "dwarf" has a mass of about 25 Jupiters and a temperature of 4100 degrees Fahrenheit. Its companion 2M1207B weighs about 8 times Jupiter and has a temperature of 2400 degrees F. Both objects are warm due to their young age of 5-10 million years, having retained the heat of formation.

Spectral analysis shows that 2M1207B is, like Jupiter, a gas planet and with that the planet cannot support human life or any life at all for that matter. But the moons that could form around it could be less hostile and hospitable to life. The large mass of 2M1207B relative to the brown dwarf star poses a puzzle for planetary formation theories. Typical planets like those in our solar system are less than one-hundredth the size of the central star. In contrast, 2M1207B holds one-third as much mass as the brown dwarf.

Further studies about these are on the way according to the research team. The study would utilize next generation telescopes such as the Giant Magellan Telescope and the Attacama Large Millimeter Array.