The Closest Star System Found in a Century

Penn State News ^ | 3/11/13

[AZLiberty]

Are brown dwarfs bound to go the way of midget pickles?

Where are the outraged PC police?

[GraceG]

I have to wonder if there are some brown dwarfs hiding out there that are a LOT closer which would explain the comets being kicked into the solar system lately...

I think if there was a small brown dwarf system less than or around 1 LY away it could prove to be a great test bed location for an interstellar probe shakedown cruise in the future...

[cripplecreek]

I can’t imagine that brown dwarfs would have planets even remotely like what we would consider habitable.

[sauron]

Great post.

Thank you for sharing it.

[Red Badger]

That would make a fantastic sci-fi story. A planet orbiting a brown dwarf for billions of years, never getting full sunlight, but somehow life evolves into an intelligent species. Near permanent darkness would guarantee extreme sensitivity to light in the infrared spectrum..............

[cripplecreek]

Maybe a planet with deep oceans with volcanic vents.

[varmintman]

I can’t imagine that brown dwarfs would have planets even remotely like what we would consider habitable.

You'd be talking about a planet orbiting inside the heliosphere or plasma sheath of a dwarf star with heat reflected back onto the planet more or less equally from all directions. Some scientists are now claiming tha would be the MOST likely scenario for habitable planets.

[Verginius Rufus]

They must produce light or we wouldn’t be able to see them. Jupiter does not produce its own light but reflects light from the sun.

[cripplecreek]

Its an interesting possibility. I know that Saturn has an enormous magnetic field and it seems likely that a brown dwarf would have the same as well. This would offer a fair amount of protection for a close orbit planet.

[cripplecreek]

We see brown dwarfs with infrared telescopes. The same with red dwarfs. Red dwarfs make up something like 80% of the stars in the universe.

Red dwarfs do emit visible light but they’re pretty dim so not one is visible with the naked eye from earth. The nearest is Proxima Centauri at 4.5 light years.

[fieldmarshaldj]

*ping*

[Verginius Rufus]

According to Wikipedia, Proxima Centauri is 400 times as far from Alpha Centauri A & B as Neptune is from the sun, and would appear only as a fifth-magnitude star viewed from Alpha Centauri. Apparently it hasn’t been conclusively proven that it is gravitationally connected with the two brighter stars although it seems to be.

[cripplecreek]

Proxima Centauri is something like 11.5 magnitude from earth.

Kinda like trying to spot a single birthday candle from 10 miles away.

[varmintman]

Ever wonder why the two chieftain gods of every one of the ancient pantheon/astral religions were Jupiter and Saturn and not the sun and the moon?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks fieldmarshaldj.

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks fieldmarshaldj.

An ‘extra, extra’ to APoD members.

[null and void]

Are brown dwarfs bound to go the way of midget pickles?

[AZLiberty]

Are brown dwarfs bound to go the way of midget pickles?

Thanks for the photo. I suppose anyone who missed the midget pickle thread must be very confused about my statement. A recent article said that an upset mom with a diminutive child convinced the Cains food company to rename its midget pickles. I'm waiting for her to go after astronomers.

[JoeProBono]