Posted on 09/18/2006 11:05:12 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Scientists using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered and directly imaged a small brown dwarf star, 50 times the mass of Jupiter... The discovery concerns a class of the coldest brown dwarfs, called T dwarfs... Luhman's team also discovered a second brown dwarf that is smaller yet, about 20 times the mass of Jupiter, orbiting another star... could be the youngest T dwarf known, offering scientists a snapshot of early brown-dwarf development. The two T dwarfs are the first to be imaged by Spitzer... Spitzer also discovered a T dwarf that is floating through space by itelf rather than orbiting a star. The team that discovered that T dwarf is led by Daniel Stern at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory... The more massive of the two newly discovered T dwarfs is called HD 3651 B, located in the constellation Pisces. This object is in a solar system containing a star slightly less massive than the sun that is orbited by a planet slightly smaller than Saturn. The planet's orbit around the sunlike star is highly elliptical, which had suggested that the gravity of some unseen object farther away from the star was pulling the planet outward... The Spitzer discovery is the first evidence to support the theory that small companions such as T dwarfs can hide in such solar systems and can cause the orbits of planets to be extreme... The other T dwarf is called HN Peg B in the constellation Pegasus. Whereas most brown dwarfs are billions of years old, HN Peg B is relatively young, only about 300 million years old... The system also contains a previously discovered disk of dust and rocks.
(Excerpt) Read more at live.psu.edu ...
I think this topic re: the disk of dust and rocks mentioned above:
Space telescope discovery raises prospect of mini solar systems
Bakersfield Californian | 2/7/05 | John Antczak - AP
Posted on 02/07/2005 11:54:22 PM EST by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1338340/posts
"Scientists snap first images..."
Where?
First time? uh... how about last year?
Gary Coleman thread.
or even 2001? I think the reference is to the first one made by Spitzer.
http://www2.keck.hawaii.edu/news/old_pages/Browndwarf.html
Welcome to X-P. I say (with pride) that this is the smallest ping list on FR (AFAIK).
I'll join.
fyi
20 x Jupiter by how big compared to our newest dwarf planet Pluto?
LOLOL!
Thanks!
Hey, what is this, stump the 'Civ? :')
I think that Jupiter is 318 times the size of Earth, and Pluto is, hmm, a bunch smaller than Earth. Looks like wikipedia has it at 1/500 the mass of Earth (the estimate of its density was made possible by the discovery of its moon, Charon; that density figure and mass will probably be adjusted when the probe arrives).
We can't get back to the moon and we are sending probes to floating ice?
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