Can a brown dwarf orbit a star?

Absolutely. There are plenty of binary and even trinary star systems. A brown dwarf is a star than is massive enough to fuse deuterium at its core. read more

Like stars, brown dwarfs form independently, but lack sufficient mass to "ignite" as do stars. Like all stars, they can occur singly or in close proximity to other stars. Some orbit stars and can, like planets, have eccentric orbits. read more

There are planets known to orbit brown dwarfs: 2M1207b, MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb, and 2MASS J044144b. At a distance of about 6.5 light years, the nearest known brown dwarf is Luhman 16, a binary system of brown dwarfs discovered in 2013. read more