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."

Comments

Re:thats actually really close...

[ushering05401]

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.'