In a recent study NASA researchers have discovered stormy weather throughout the atmospheres of brown dwarfs.
First discovered in 1988 Brown Dwarfs are stellar objects that have failed to gather the enough mass to ignite a self-sustaining fusion reaction. Often called failed stars, brown dwarfs are of particular interest to scientists because they’re often far enough away from other stars to escape the obscuring glare produced by their light.
Using the Spitzer Infared Space telescope NASA researchers have been observing how 44 brown dwarfs rotate about their axis. During their 20 hour observations scientists were looking for variation in the brightness of each brown dwarf, an indication that there could be weather on the near-stellar bodies. “As the brown dwarfs spin on their axis, the alternation of what we think are cloud-free and cloudy regions produces a periodic brightness variation that we can observe,” said Stanimir Metchev of Western University, Ontario, Canada. “These are signs of patchiness in the cloud cover.”
From their results researchers found that half of the observed brown dwarfs demonstrated variations in their brightness, a surprise considering previous studies of brown dwarf weather concluded few dwarfs were meteorologically active.
According to NASA, “Scientists think that the cloudy regions on brown dwarfs take the form of torrential storms, accompanied by winds and, possibly, lightning more violent than that at Jupiter or any other planet in our solar system. However, the brown dwarfs studied so far are too hot for water rain; instead, astronomers believe the rain in these storms, like the clouds themselves, is made of hot sand, molten iron or salts.” A truly terrifying prospect!
NASA researchers hope that the information they gain from studying brown dwarfs will help them better understand the formation and weather patterns that occur on their smaller counterparts, gas giants. With a better understanding of gas giants scientist may be able to explain phenomenon like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and other intriguing anomalies.
Images and Courtesy of NASA
