As a kid growing up in New York City, Rebecca Oppenheimer always wanted to study stars and planets. She never dreamed she would someday discover an entirely new kind of object. In 1995, she observed a small, dim object that was neither a planet nor a star. It is called a brown dwarf. This observation shows us that there are still things left to be discovered in the universe. Rebecca also studies faraway planets, and dying stars called white dwarfs.