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Brown Dwarf Companion to Epsilon Indi
silent lurker writes "A team of European astronomers has discovered a Brown Dwarf object (a 'failed' star) less than 12 light-years from the Sun. It is the nearest yet known. Now designated Epsilon Indi B, it is a companion
to a well-known bright star in the southern sky, Epsilon Indi (now "Epsilon Indi A"), previously thought to be single. The binary system
is one of the twenty nearest stellar systems to the Sun. ...and astronomers believe there might be as many as 12x as many brown dwarf stars as there are visible ones! Hmmmm... Lots o' juicy fodder for SF content creators, dontcha think? ...not to mention astronomers themselves. See press release from
European Southern Observatory. Another item is from
Science Daily."
Well in Elite anyway.
Ah well... Lonely life.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Brown dwarfs are thought to form in much the same way as stars, by the gravitational collapse of clumps of cold gas and dust in dense molecular clouds. However, for reasons not yet entirely clear, some clumps end up with masses less than about 7.5% of that of our Sun, or 75 times the mass of planet Jupiter. Below that boundary, there is not enough pressure in the core to initiate nuclear hydrogen fusion, the long-lasting and stable source of power for ordinary stars like the Sun. Except for a brief early phase where some deuterium is burned, these low-mass objects simply continue to cool and fade slowly away while releasing the heat left-over from their birth.
Troll Stars, anyone?
-MT.
Brown dwarf? Good god! For those of you living in a cave, the proper ethnically-sensitive term is "Vertically-challenged African-American". How would you like someone to refer to you as "Whitey 4-eyes"? At least you guys had the sense to use the word "companion" rather than "hooker" although "escort" would also be acceptable.
Just because they don't spend their nights recompiling their Linux kernals doesn't make them any less of a person than you. Let's try to use modern terminology here, people!
GMD
watch this
"A team of European astronomers has discovered a Brown Dwarf object (a 'failed' star)..."
Must...not...make...Gary Coleman...or Emmanuel Lewis...joke...too...late...
I object to the characterization of the star as "failed". While it may be true that it is something of an under-achiever, I would submit that Epsilon Indi B will eventually turn around and realize it's full potential.
If it could only find a one-by-four-by-nine monolith, Epsilon Indi B might well transform itself brilliantly. While Epsilon Indi B may live in a vacuum, its fate is far from predetermined, and who are you or anyone else to say otherwise?
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
most of my Star Trek nerdophernalia is packed in a box somewhere.
Excellent. Identifying and isolating the problem are important first steps. Next is setting it on fire.
Good luck. And God's speed.