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Object Defies Categorization As Planet or Star

Posted by timothy on from the stella-incognito dept.

Kligat writes "The COROT project of the French Space Agency has detected an object described as defying categorization as a planet, star, or brown dwarf. Although only 0.8 times the radius of Jupiter, it is over 20 times as massive, giving it a density twice that of the metal platinum. If it is a star, it would be the smallest of those ever discovered."

13 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Um... by IronMagnus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thats no moon...

    1. Re:Um... by rk · · Score: 5, Funny

      Cue the Death Star references in 3... damn! Late to the party again!

    2. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      To replace a lot of "funny" tags on post there should be a new categorization called "obligatory."

      Because I, for one, welcome our new obligatory overlords.

  2. Thats no moon ... by hostyle · · Score: 5, Funny

    Eh. how about calling it "large dense object in space" also known as The Shatner

    --
    Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
    1. Re:Thats no moon ... by TigerNut · · Score: 4, Funny

      I have mod points, but there is no category for "oddly appropriate gratuitous abuse". Whadya think?

      --

      Less is more.

  3. How massive by powerlord · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oddly enough, the interstitial ad for this is for "Mass Effect"

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    This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
  4. Brown Dwarf... by OMNIpotusCOM · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...needs classification badly

  5. It's a Dwarf! by flaming+error · · Score: 4, Informative
    From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf:

    Brown dwarfs are sub-stellar objects with a mass below that necessary to maintain hydrogen-burning nuclear fusion reactions in their cores, as do stars on the main sequence, but which have fully convective surfaces and interiors, with no chemical differentiation by depth. Brown dwarfs occupy the mass range between that of large gas giant planets and the lowest mass stars; this upper limit is between 75[1] and 80 Jupiter masses (MJ). Currently there is some debate as to what criterion to use to define the separation between a brown dwarf from a giant planet at very low brown dwarf masses (~13 MJ ), and whether brown dwarfs are required to have experienced fusion at some point in their history. In any event, brown dwarfs heavier than 13 MJ do fuse deuterium and those above ~65 MJ also fuse lithium.
    1. Re:It's a Dwarf! by PakProtector · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Dear Gods. Maybe it's a black dwarf. A dead star that burned through all its nuclear fuel long ago and has since cooled.

      --

      Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
      man: no entry for woman in the manual.
      "Qua!?"

    2. Re:It's a Dwarf! by Goobermunch · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If it is, we're going to have to reevaluate the age of the universe.

      Theoretically speaking, it should take longer than the current estimated age of the universe for a star to go through the evolution to red giant to white dwarf to black dwarf.

      If it is a black dwarf, that'd be flipping cool.

      --AC

  6. Re:Sorry... by Tr3vin · · Score: 5, Funny

    My bathroom broke on an interstellar sight-seeing trip and I had to go real bad... That had to hurt. The object is much larger than Uranus...
  7. FWIW: IANAAP by Goobermunch · · Score: 4, Informative

    Except that Dark Matter as we currently understand it is not simply matter that's "in the dark." Under current cosmological theory, regular baryonic matter, makes up only a small fraction of the universe, with dark matter (i.e., non-baryonic matter) making up some of the rest and dark energy making up approximately 70%.

    So while this object contributes to some of the missing mass in the universe, it's probably not the kind of thing that properly would be called dark matter.

    --AC

  8. Re:Sorry... by inode_buddha · · Score: 5, Funny

    It must have been the Captain's Log...

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