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Storm-like Activity Found on Brown Dwarfs

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the since-my-gal-and-I-ain't-together dept.

Schwamm writes "Yesterday, scientists at NASA and UCLA announced that they had spotted storm-like activity on brown dwarfs, balls of gas larger than Jupiter and Saturn, but too small to burn hydrogen. These storms on the brown dwarfs make the Great Red Spot on Jupiter look like a 'small squall'. Here's another article at CNN."

2 of 23 comments (clear)

  1. Brown Dwarfs: Planets or Stars? by eggstasy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So does this mean that Brown Dwarfs are more closely related to planets than to stars?
    I've always though of them as smallish, lukewarm stars myself, but I'm not a professional astronomer or anything.
    Does anyone out there have more info on this?
    What's the most widely accepted theory nowadays? Is it about to change?

    1. Re:Brown Dwarfs: Planets or Stars? by JetScootr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      From what the article said, make anything big enough, it becomes a star. If it ain't quite big enough, it's a brown dwarf. If it ain't even that big, it's a gas giant planet. The diff is only in how much gas comes together. Apparently, you could just as easily call it a mega-size, mega-hot planet, or call Jupiter a nano-dwarf star.

      --
      Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.