News tagged with brown dwarfs

Ultra-cool companion helps reveal giant planets

(Phys.org) -- An international team of astronomers led by David Pinfield of the University of Hertfordshire has found a brown dwarf that is more than 99% hydrogen and helium. Described as ultra-cool, it has ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 10, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Astronomers find extreme weather on an alien world

(PhysOrg.com) -- A University of Toronto-led team of astronomers has observed extreme brightness changes on a nearby brown dwarf that may indicate a storm grander than any seen yet on a planet. Because old ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 12, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

As cool as the human body: Wise mission discovers coolest class of stars

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have discovered the coldest class of star-like bodies, with temperatures as cool as the human body.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 24, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (20) | comments 18 | with audio podcast

Mysterious Planet-like Object Challenges Simple Definition, Reveals Its Surprising Identity

(PhysOrg.com) -- A mysterious planet-like object orbiting a not-quite-starlike "brown dwarf" is the most recent enigma discovered by astronomers with their ever-more powerful telescopes. Kamen Todorov, a graduate ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 06, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (24) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Six new planets discovered

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team, including Oxford University scientists, has discovered six diverse new planets, from 'shrunken-Saturns' to 'bloated hot Jupiters', as well a rare brown dwarf with 60 ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 14, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (30) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

'This Planet Tastes Funny,' According to Spitzer

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered something odd about a distant planet -- it lacks methane, an ingredient common to many of the planets in our solar system.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 21, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (25) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

The earliest stages of planet formation

(PhysOrg.com) -- Small dust particles in a disk of gas around a young star, according to current models, gradually coagulate during the first million years until kilometer-sized objects are formed. These in ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 26, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Record-breaking photo reveals a planet-sized object as cool as the Earth

(PhysOrg.com) -- The photo of a nearby star and its orbiting companion -- whose temperature is like a hot summer day in Arizona -- will be presented by Penn State Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 19, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (12) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

Comet Elenin poses no threat to Earth

(PhysOrg.com) -- Often, comets are portrayed as harbingers of gloom and doom in movies and on television, but most pose no threat to Earth. Comet Elenin, the latest comet to visit our inner solar system, is ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Aug 17, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 12 | with audio podcast

Spitzer Telescope Observes Baby Brown Dwarf

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has contributed to the discovery of the youngest brown dwarf ever observed -- a finding that, if confirmed, may solve an astronomical mystery about how these ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 23, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (13) | comments 0

Can WISE find the hypothetical 'Tyche'?

(PhysOrg.com) -- In November 2010, the scientific journal Icarus published a paper by astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire, who proposed the existence of a binary companion to our sun, larger than ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 22, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (14) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

Baby stars born to 'napping' parents

(PhysOrg.com) -- Cardiff University astronomers believe that a young star's long "napping" could trigger the formation of a second generation of smaller stars and planets orbiting around it.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 09, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Birth of a baby planet

(PhysOrg.com) -- University of Sydney astronomer, Professor Peter Tuthill, is one of an international team of astronomers who have announced a major step forward in the quest to find planets in orbit around ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 02, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (9) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Two new brown dwarf Solar neighbors discovered

Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) have discovered two new brown dwarfs at estimated distances of only 15 and 18 light years from the Sun. For comparison: The next star to ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 15, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (15) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

Super cold brown dwarf or is it a planet?

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a month that has already announced the discovery of a brown dwarf 75 light-years from Earth, NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope has found what could prove to be an even cooler, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 23, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 6 | with audio podcast report