“This object is right at the boundary between a planet and a brown dwarf , or ‘failed star,’ and is giving us some surprises that can potentially help us understand magnetic processes on both stars and planets,” said Arizona State University’s Melodie Kao, who led the new study on SIMP, in a press release For a planet, SIMP is also pretty hot: The world has a surface temperature of over 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit (825 Celsius). For comparison, the hottest planet in our solar system is Venus, which sports an average temperature of around 875 F (470 C), while the Sun, a relatively small and cool star, has a surface temperature of about 10,000 F (5,500 C). However, it’s important to note that Venus gets most of its heat from the Sun. And since solitary SIMP is not orbiting a star, its heat must be leftover from its initial formation some 200 million years ago. So, over time, the planetary goliath will continue to radiate away its warmth.According to the most recent study, SIMP is not only gigantic by planetary standards, but it also possesses a magnetic field that is millions of times stronger than that of our home planet. And although this magnetic field helps SIMP produce stunning light shows, the auroras are not generated in the same way as they are here on Earth.Jupiter has, by far, the most powerful magnetic field in the solar system. At nearly 20,000 times the strength of Earth’s, Jupiter’s field produces astoundingly bright auroras. These occur when electrically charged particles are accelerated along the planet’s magnetic field lines before smashing into atoms in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere at around 3,000 miles (5,000 kilometers) per second.On Earth, a similar process produces what we call the northern and southern lights; however, the charged particles that lead to Earth’s auroras primarily come from the Sun in the form of solar wind. On Jupiter, however, the charged particles mainly come from its moon Io instead of the solar wind. Since SIMP does not have a star bombarding it with wind like Earth does, the researchers believe that SIMP’s auroras may be produced more like Jupiter's, which means SIMP may have a moon.
Astronomers discover a nearby free-range planet with incredible magne
aronenark on September 25th, 2019 at 18:28 UTC »
Rogue planets are actually predicted to be extremely common. The mass of stars is on an inverse distribution; the heavier, brighter stars are very rare, while smaller, dimmer stars are extremely common. One would predict this distribution to hold true even below 13 Jupiter masses (the threshold for nuclear fusion, and thus being a star), and surmise that there might be even more “brown dwarfs” in the galaxy than even red dwarfs, the most common type of star.
The problem is that we have a fundamental observation bias: because brown dwarfs produce little to no light of their own, they are practically invisible to us at interstellar distances. Unlike other stars which are constantly emitting beacons advertising their own existence, brown dwarfs float invisible through the cosmos, so they seem exceedingly rare because we simply cannot see them.
PantsJihad on September 25th, 2019 at 15:04 UTC »
Wait, 13 times the mass of Jupiter, isn't this thing basically just a star where somebody forgot to hit the "ignite" button?
PodporuchikKJ on September 25th, 2019 at 15:03 UTC »
Free-range planets are leaner and tastier than factory-farmed planets.