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 ...
Imagine what all that ice could do for our global warming problem. ;') ;') ;')
Welcome aboard! Believe me, I will *not* be offering a digest version. ;')
No Gary Coleman jokes now.
Too late! But at least no one did this...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1677175/posts?page=12#12
Fit inside that of Mercury? Also a catastrophism topic.Brown dwarfs may stretch out exoplanets' orbitsMany of the planets discovered orbiting other stars have very elongated orbits, unlike the relatively circular orbits of planets in our own solar system. That is puzzling because planets are thought to initially form in circular orbits, and astronomers are not sure what causes them to stretch out over time. One possibility is that two planets orbiting the same star may have close encounters that change both their orbits. Another possibility is that a planet's orbit could change early on because of gravitational interactions with the disc from which it formed. A third possibility involves a brown dwarf, often called a "failed star" because it is a ball of gas like regular stars but is not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion. The brown dwarf would orbit the star at a much greater distance than the planet, pulling on the planet and gradually stretching its orbit over millions of years... A planet about two-thirds the mass of Saturn had previously been discovered in an oval-shaped orbit much closer to the star. Its orbit would fit inside that of Mercury in our own solar system.
by David Shiga
New Scientist
20 September 2006
Comet's course hints at mystery planet [ from 2001 ]
Govert Schilling | last updated February 5th, 2002 | Govert Schilling
Posted on 08/18/2006 5:36:59 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1686125/posts
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