Brown Dwarf Stars May Be Missing Cosmic Link

An anonymous reader writes "It may be that brown dwarfs are the 'missing step' between the radio emissions we see generated by the planet Jupiter and what are received from pulsars. Brown dwarfs are, of course, 'failed' stars. They emit extremely strong beams of radiation, like a standard star, but are behaving on the whole more like a pulsar. 'Greg Hallinan from the National University of Ireland in Galway and his colleagues used the Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico to observe a very cool, rapidly rotating brown dwarf called TVLM 513-46546. A bright flash from the brown dwarf was observed roughly every two hours, and are very similar to those observed from pulsars. But this whole system is on a much slower and smaller scale, so it is easier for astronomers to decipher what is going on. For some time, scientists have wondered if there were similarities between this type of emission and the periodic radio beams from pulsars. Observations of TVLM 513-46546 could provide the first direct evidence for such a link."

Comments

I'm not the most politically correct guy

[QuantumG]

Brown dwarfs are, of course, 'failed' stars. but even I know that's not a very nice way to refer to Gary Coleman.

Re:The're missing allright

[HerrEkberg]

Which means that you are either Irish or play too much World of Warcraft.

"missing step"?

[khallow]

I'm unclear why there should be a "path" between Jupiter and neutron stars. By this, I mean there's no continuous range of density between the two. On the neutron star side, the jump from a star supported by electromagnetic repulsion to one supported by the strong force is a substantial jump in density and there's no intermediate step. On Jupiter's side, there's a profound change when going from no fusion (or to be honest, trivial amounts of fusion since fusion can in theory happen extremely rarely even at room temperature due to quantum mechanical tunnelling) to deutronium fusion and to regular fusion are big jumps as well.

Re:"missing step"?

[mikael]

I guess it's astronomical philosophy. Choose any two objects in the universe, and you should be able to find something inbetween. The more interesting objects occur at the critical point between two states (like the Schwarzschild radius for a black hole or the Chandrasekhar limit for supernovae). Objects just below these limits will often demonstrate numerous failed attempts to cross the threshold (A star might repeatedly attempt to go supernova by gaining mass from its companion, blow off some layers, only to fizzle out, then repeat the process months later). These observations give the chance to build more accurate models.

Missing link?

[Lithdren]

Evolutionists and their crazy mixed up theories!!

Clearly Brown Dwarf Stars are not the missing link between man and ape! This is just further proof that god created everything.

Im so white, it hurts! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Its funny. Laugh.

Sounds more like a dating story and sex scandal

[holywarrior21c]

It may be that brown dwarfs are the 'emissions' we see generated by the Jupiter and what are received from pulsars. Brown dwarfs are, of course, 'failed' stars. They emit extremely strong beams. standard star, but are behaving on the whole more like a pulsar. University of Ireland in Galway and his colleagues used the Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico to observe a very cool, rapidly rotating 'brown dwarf' and he called TVLM 513-46546. the brown dwarf was observed roughly every two hours, and are very similar to those observed from pulsars. But this 'whole system' is on a much slower and smaller scale, so it is easier for astronomers to 'decipher' what is going on. For some time, scientists have wondered if there were similarities between this type of emission and the 'periodic beams' from pulsars. Call TVLM 513-46546, it could provide the first direct evidence for such a 'link'

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i am not ur daddy

Title ?

[smoker2]

Maybe the title would make more sense if it were arranged correctly :

Instead of "Brown Dwarf Stars May Be Missing Cosmic Link" it should read "Brown Dwarf Stars May Be Cosmic Missing Link". (Assuming of course there is supposed to be an analogy to the missing link between humans and apes)

The way it currently reads, it seems that these stars actually have something missing from their make-up, which is not the point.
12 year olds editing /. again ?

When Your Light Bulb Flickers, Is it Spinning?

[pln2bz]

This is actually a great article because, if you read and think about what it's saying closely, it's hard not to wonder if it's possible that neutron stars could be pulsing for electrical reasons rather than spinning. We've observed pulsars to be pulsing at such phenomenal rates that it was necessary to postulate the existence of a new form of matter, neutronium, in order to explain the fast rotational velocity. But the idea that the flickering could be the result of electrical sparking between a binary star pair, as plasma does within the laboratory, was passed over in favor of a theory that depended upon matter that had never been observed to exist within the laboratory.

Why? Because the notion that electricity flows through space to such an extent that it can create visible lightning bolts between two stars is not an acceptable notion for mainstream astrophysicists. And yet, we know that matter within the plasma state is an electrical phenomenon within the laboratory. We know that the luminosity graphs we see coming from pulsars, unlike a rotating body, very closely match the behavior of lightning in that it possesses a fast rise and a slow decay (http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050 527variablexray.htm). We know that we identify many of the pulsars to actually be members of binary star pairs. We've observed that this flickering can glitch, as it has with the Vela Pulsar. We've even observed lightning-like filaments being emitted from this same pulsar (http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/04092 0pulsar.htm). One wonders why we continue to so strongly hold onto the belief that the flickering for pulsars is due to rotation instead of electrical activity even as it is supposed that the flickering of brown dwarfs is now observed to be the result of electrical activity at its poles. The very fact that pulsars are emitting radio emissions, which is presented within this article to be a mystery, suggests that the flickering is due to electrical activity. Our data regarding pulsars, which is at least enough to prevent us from forming any consensus opinion on the cause of pulsar flickering, appears to be taking a back seat to the theory that their flickering must be the result of spinning.

It will be very interesting to see what happens over time to TVLM 513-46546. In the Electric Universe view, these objects are not stars in their death throes, but rather gas giant planets that can potentially turn into objects as bright as our Sun, given more charge density. It is very possible that we could see this gas giant turn into a star right before our eyes. Given enough charge density, the plasma can change modes from the normal glow mode into the arc mode. Or, if the distance between it and its binary companion is decreasing, we may see the rate of flickering decrease. In the electrical view, we've observed this type of thing before for another nearby star, Betelgeuse. Look at the "hot spot" on that star at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse. This is what one would expect to see with EU Theory if the star is transitioning between the normal glow and arc modes. What's important to note is that we may see dramatic changes for the star take shape over the course of just years, and that these changes can violate the mainstream stellar evolution theories. It's easy when a star is far away to suppose all sorts of hypothetical explanations for our observations. But when we can see detail, as for this brown dwarf, it places additional constraints on our speculations.