... The missing link . The discovery of radio emissions from brown dwarfs may unlock the mysteries of how pulsars work. ... We now think brown dwarfs may be a missing link between pulsars and planets in our own Solar System, which also emit, but more weakly," he added. ... In 2001, a group of summer students at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory used the VLA to observe a brown dwarf, even though seasoned astronomers had told them that brown dwarfs were not observable at radio wavelengths. ...