Posted on 12/14/2023 11:21:38 AM PST by Red Badger
Researchers from Penn State University and the European Space Agency havr located the smallest known brown dwarf by using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Photo courtesy of the European Space Agency
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Dec. 13 (UPI) -- NASA said its James Webb Space Telescope has spotted the "tiniest free-floating brown dwarf" ever identified.
"Brown dwarfs are objects that straddle the dividing line between stars and planets," the space agency said in a press release Wednesday,
"They form like stars," NASA said. However, unlike stars, Brown dwarfs don't have enough mass to cause nuclear fusion in their cores the way stars do.
Researchers Kevin Luhman of Penn State University and Catarina Alves de Oliviera of the European Space Agency located the brown dwarf by focusing on the relatively young IC 348 star cluster.
"This cluster is young, only about 5 million years old. As a result, any brown dwarfs would still be relatively bright in infrared light, glowing from the heat of their formation," NASA said.
The researchers identified the brown dwarf using the telescope's near-infrared camera and used the near-Infrared spectrograph microshutter array to examine the identified areas.
NASA said it hopes that by observing the brown dwarf, researchers can gain insight into the formation of stars and understand more about massive exoplanets, which have similar characteristics to brown dwarfs.
"A free-floating brown dwarf is easier to study than a giant exoplanet since the latter is hidden within the glare of its host star," NASA said.
Scientists hope to learn more about how Brown dwarfs form out of gas, as they have far less mass than stars.
"We have to ask, how does the star formation process operate at such very, very small masses?" de Olveira said.
This check is not required on affirmative action applications.
They’re often called brown dwarf “stars”, but they’re really like the article says, a gray area between planets and stars. A large brown dwarf can probably look very much like a star. At about 75 to 80 Jupiter mass actual hydrogen (proton-proton) fusion kicks in and it becomes a red dwarf. A full-fledged star.
Yep
One of Teresa Heinz Kerry’s little brown workers?
If they aren’t as big as “real” stars, maybe they should be called “startles.”
Or whatever you call low-grade actors.
“tiniest free-floating brown dwarf”
Just an idea...πππ
https://rumble.com/vm1zwo-just-an-idea....html
Niburu!!! It’s coming!!!!
Brown Dwarfβ¦. That name will last about 5 more minutes.
You win the Internet today!
Fauci....
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