Page 16 - Brown Dwarf News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

New observations of Luhman 16 B, the closest brown dwarf to Earth, suggests that its atmosphere is dominated by high-speed global winds, which alters clouds distribution and gives the object a stripey appearance. This first-of-a-kind study of the atmosphere is reported in The Astrophysical Journal. Brown dwarfs are odd astronomical beasts. Some of them are smaller than Jupiter and Saturn, but they are tens of times more massive. However, that’s not massive enough to be fully-fledged stars, hence why these stellar bodies are often called failed stars. These objects are hot when they form and...

Brown dwarf stars have been getting some attention lately as astronomers debate whether these small celestial bodies are actually stars (they’re often referred to as failed stars) or large gas giant planets like our own Jupiter. Those supporting the brown-dwarfs-are-gas-giant-planets theory got a boost recently with new research showing that brown dwarfs show evidence of stripes, bands and polar storms similar to those seen on Jupiter. Talk of stars, stipes and bands brings to mind the famous march written and composed by John Philip Sousa in 1896. was he making a subtle comment about brown...

Illustration shows how the star's motion around the center of mass between it and the planet causes a "wobble" in its motion through space. The VLBA's ability to detect this minuscule effect revealed the presence of the planet. It’s been a year of adaptation for everyone. The pandemic has upended many of the ways we function as an organization, from the easy communication gleaned from informal office chats to how our crews might implement a configuration change moving many of the Very Large Array’s 230-ton antennas  (adding many employee safety protocols). There were unanticipa...