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Brown dwarfs are objects that straddle the dividing line between stars and planets. They form like stars, growing dense enough to collapse under their own gravity, but they never become dense and hot enough to begin fusing hydrogen and turn into a star. At the low end of the scale, some brown dwarfs are comparable with giant planets, weighing just a few times the mass of Jupiter. Astronomers are trying to determine the smallest object that can form in a star-like manner. A team using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has identified the new record-holder: a tiny, free-floating brown dwarf ...