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Space Science

Brown Dwarf Stars May Be Missing Cosmic Link 36

Posted by Zonk from the they're-out-there dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It may be that brown dwarfs are the 'missing step' between the radio emissions we see generated by the planet Jupiter and what are received from pulsars. Brown dwarfs are, of course, 'failed' stars. They emit extremely strong beams of radiation, like a standard star, but are behaving on the whole more like a pulsar. 'Greg Hallinan from the National University of Ireland in Galway and his colleagues used the Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico to observe a very cool, rapidly rotating brown dwarf called TVLM 513-46546. A bright flash from the brown dwarf was observed roughly every two hours, and are very similar to those observed from pulsars. But this whole system is on a much slower and smaller scale, so it is easier for astronomers to decipher what is going on. For some time, scientists have wondered if there were similarities between this type of emission and the periodic radio beams from pulsars. Observations of TVLM 513-46546 could provide the first direct evidence for such a link."
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Brown Dwarf Stars May Be Missing Cosmic Link More

Brown Dwarf Stars May Be Missing Cosmic Link

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  • I'm not the most politically correct guy (Score:5, Funny)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Saturday April 21, 2007 @05:18AM (#18822441) Homepage Journal

    Brown dwarfs are, of course, 'failed' stars.
    but even I know that's not a very nice way to refer to Gary Coleman.

  • Brown Dwarf Stars May Not Be Missing Cosmic Link
  • All the dwarfs i've seen are white and have a red beard.
  • When I first glanced at "cosmic missing link" part of the subject, I thought "finally, they've found an answer to all this dark matter/energy" business. Then I read the summary. *sigh*

  • "missing step"? (Score:3, Informative)

    by khallow ( 566160 ) on Saturday April 21, 2007 @07:08AM (#18822883)
    I'm unclear why there should be a "path" between Jupiter and neutron stars. By this, I mean there's no continuous range of density between the two. On the neutron star side, the jump from a star supported by electromagnetic repulsion to one supported by the strong force is a substantial jump in density and there's no intermediate step. On Jupiter's side, there's a profound change when going from no fusion (or to be honest, trivial amounts of fusion since fusion can in theory happen extremely rarely even at room temperature due to quantum mechanical tunnelling) to deutronium fusion and to regular fusion are big jumps as well.

    • Re:"missing step"? (Score:4, Informative)

      by mikael ( 484 ) on Saturday April 21, 2007 @08:11AM (#18823153)
      I guess it's astronomical philosophy. Choose any two objects in the universe, and you should be able to find something inbetween. The more interesting objects occur at the critical point between two states (like the Schwarzschild radius for a black hole or the Chandrasekhar limit for supernovae). Objects just below these limits will often demonstrate numerous failed attempts to cross the threshold (A star might repeatedly attempt to go supernova by gaining mass from its companion, blow off some layers, only to fizzle out, then repeat the process months later). These observations give the chance to build more accurate models.
  • Evolutionists and their crazy mixed up theories!!

    Clearly Brown Dwarf Stars are not the missing link between man and ape! This is just further proof that god created everything.

    Im so white, it hurts! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Its funny. Laugh.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Its funny. Laugh.
      No, it's not. And you know what? I'm kind of fed up with how these days every slashdot discussion with a "hard" science topic gets cluttered with extremely bad jokes. Please go away.
      • Why post something like that as an AC?

        If you dont like the 'funny' posts, you can filter them out. Personally, I enjoy a good laugh, it keeps my day moving forward.

        But of course, you're a troll, and I should keep from feeding you. I just care about all of gods animals, be they a beautiful swan, or an ugly bridge-dwelling troll. So feed well, little friend. Feed well.

    • Some people believe in stellar evolution; others believe stars are designed by intelligences. After all, how could they form such pleasing constellations and delightfully spherical shapes by mere random chance?

  • It may be that brown dwarfs are the 'emissions' we see generated by the Jupiter and what are received from pulsars. Brown dwarfs are, of course, 'failed' stars. They emit extremely strong beams. standard star, but are behaving on the whole more like a pulsar. University of Ireland in Galway and his colleagues used the Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico to observe a very cool, rapidly rotating 'brown dwarf' and he called TVLM 513-46546. the brown dwarf was observed roughly every two hours, and ar
  • Brown dwarfs are, of course, 'failed' stars.

    18 of 19 posts? This is, of course, a failed thread....

  • Title ? (Score:3)

    by smoker2 ( 750216 ) on Saturday April 21, 2007 @01:05PM (#18825243) Homepage Journal
    Maybe the title would make more sense if it were arranged correctly :

    Instead of "Brown Dwarf Stars May Be Missing Cosmic Link" it should read "Brown Dwarf Stars May Be Cosmic Missing Link". (Assuming of course there is supposed to be an analogy to the missing link between humans and apes)

    The way it currently reads, it seems that these stars actually have something missing from their make-up, which is not the point.
    12 year olds editing /. again ?

  • This is actually a great article because, if you read and think about what it's saying closely, it's hard not to wonder if it's possible that neutron stars could be pulsing for electrical reasons rather than spinning. We've observed pulsars to be pulsing at such phenomenal rates that it was necessary to postulate the existence of a new form of matter, neutronium, in order to explain the fast rotational velocity. But the idea that the flickering could be the result of electrical sparking between a binary s

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      We've observed pulsars to be pulsing at such phenomenal rates that it was necessary to postulate the existence of a new form of matter, neutronium, in order to explain the fast rotational velocity.

      No. Rotation is necessary to explain the extraordinary predictability of the pulse rate, as well as the random precipitous changes in pulse rate of some pulsars. Impact of infalling matter with a degenerate matter surface in the presence of an ultra-strong magnetic field also explains the short time-scale,

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by pln2bz ( 449850 ) *
        Thank you for your thoughtful responses to my posting. After forwarding your response to the theorists themselves, I've received a detailed response for you that should help to clarify and move the debate forward. I hope that you will afford as much time to consider their response as they have in carefully responding to your challenge. It's unfortunate that such a delay is necessary to respond that few people will actually notice that a response has been posted. For this reason, I hope that in the futur

    • When Your Light Bulb Flickers, Is it Spinning?
      No. Electric Universe crackpot loonies [google.com]

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by pln2bz ( 449850 ) *
        That you imagine that a forum titled "Bad Astronomy" is going to act as an objective resource for evaluating out-of-the-mainstream astrophysical theories says quite a bit.

        One hopes that you formed your opinion on the basis of at least one person that *supports* the theory, and that you are not asserting that a consensus judgment is enough to disprove a theory.

        It's hardly objective to do, as most people on this forum have done, which is to

        (a) not read what the theory says;

        (b) proposee that *calculations* by
      • I'd like to invite you to observe the detailed response to the electric pulsar conversation posted by the Electric Universe Theorists at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=231727&cid=188 87297 [slashdot.org] (based upon thread start at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=231727&cid=188 26531 [slashdot.org]) so that you may observe that there is indeed a legitimate debate.

        I think you will find that this response is not the senseless ranting one would expect of a "loony". My hope is that you will in the future respect that a gro
  • Well I'm pretty sure that one or more Red Dwarf Stars form a missing Comic Link.

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