Astronomers have witnessed what they believe is the birth of the smallest-known solar system. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University found a brown dwarf star -- less than

one-hundredth the mass of the sun -- surrounded by what appears to be a disk of dust and gas. Located 500 light years away in the constellation Chamaeleon, the brown dwarf appears to be

undergoing a planet-forming process that could one day yield a solar system, the team plans to report in a future issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.