According to the paper’s abstract, - We’d like to study exoplanet atmospheres, but that’s hard because you can’t separate them from the star. Brown dwarfs are

According to the paper’s abstract, - We’d like to study exoplanet atmospheres, but that’s hard because you can’t separate them from the star. Brown dwarfs are a good substitute because they are kind of like really big exoplanets. - There’s chemistry happening inside the atmosphere of a brown dwarf, and chemicals will get transported up or down from where they are made. The detection of HCN in the brown dwarf spectrum means that some of our models for brown dwarfs are wrong.