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Rogue Brown Dwarf Lurks In Our Cosmic Neighborhood
astroengine writes "The UK Infrared Telescope in Hawaii has discovered a lone, cool brown dwarf called UGPSJ0722-05. As far as sub-stellar objects go, this is a strange one. For starters, it's the coolest brown dwarf ever discovered (and astronomers using the UKIRT should know; they are making a habit of finding cool brown dwarfs). Secondly, it's close. In fact, it's the closest brown dwarf to Earth, at a distance of only 10 light years. And thirdly, it has an odd spectroscopic signature, leading astronomers to think that this might be the discovery of a whole new class of brown dwarf."
Just waiting for the Nibiru and Planet X quacks to say "See? We told you so!".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_collision
I think that the discovery of water is very interesting. And with organic compounds existing there (in the liked article) this could be a very important discovery in our quest to understand the universe.
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
Aldous Huxley
You think we can send a probe an average of 1/10th C, including acceleration and slowdown?
He's the coolest brown dwarf I know of too, but how did he get out there?
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
This chart http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/nearest.html lists the closest objects to earth. The brown dwarf (being a failed brown dwarf and found recently...howzabout calling it FAIL) is about the 12th closest object to our solar system.
Well, according to wikipedia, the largest estimates put the Oort cloud out at 3.6 light years, so this brown dwarf is probably too far away to perturb the Oort cloud, but as an aside observation: If the Sun's oort cloud is 3.5 light years in radius, and Proxima Centuari is only 4.2 light years away, and assuming Proxima Centuri has its own oort cloud (if it didn't get swept away by the gravitational interaction of the multiple stars), would our system's outer members and Proxima's outer members intermingle? IIRC, the Oort cloud objects aren't necessarily on the plane on the system.
You think we can send a probe an average of 1/10th C, including acceleration and slowdown?
Theoretically possible using a nuclear power source and ion propulsion. Probably would be decades before we could practically do it, but the idea isn't outside the realm of possibility starting with existing technology...
It'd be a lot easier though to try this with Alpha Centauri though. It's only 4 light years away, not 10.
This is an interesting find though. Given the lack of planets or sign of the remnants of the formation of a star/planetary system I'd say this thing is definitely a rogue, that formed in another planetary system that was ejected by gravity. Brown dwarfs actually are able to do deuterium (lower mass ones) and even lithium fusion (higher mass ones) for a short period of time (100MY or so for the fuel to run out) but this one may be too small to have done either.
We certainly are going to discover a lot more of these as we get better and better instruments. They are likely very common, and we are likely to see the discovery of tons more brown dwarfs and very low mass red dwarfs in the coming decades. What is fascinating would be to know exactly where the line is between a very low mass red dwarf that can initiate and sustain core hydrogen fusion and a brown dwarf that either never starts core hydrogen fusion or cannot sustain it.
Corporatism != Free Market
Project Orion is the only one I have ever heard of that claims such speeds.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Slowdown? We won't get military support that way, therefore no funding. We smash something into it at maximum speed and let the military gather transport and devastation metrics from a collision involving speeds never before recorded by human instruments.
Then the astronomers study the ejecta, the engineers review vehicle performance metrics, the doomsday prophets rework their asteroid impact models, the cosmologists continue to try to convince their mother-in-laws that they really are cosmologists despite not knowing anything about t-zones, foundation blending, manicuring, waxing.... and no, that doesn't mean they went to a bad 'school of cosmology.'
Wouldn't solar sails fail to work once you reach the Heliopause?