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You know how sometimes you listen to the radio really loud in the car and then turn the car off forgetting to turn the volume down so when you turn the car back on the radio BLOWS OUT YOUR EARDRUMS?
This blast was a zillion times more powerful. https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/a-blast-of-radiation-reveals-a-nearby-cold-brown-dwarf
This blast was a zillion times more powerful. https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/a-blast-of-radiation-reveals-a-nearby-cold-brown-dwarf
2/ I love brown dwarfs. They're so interesting! More massive than planets, less massive than stars, some are hot, some cold, some have an atmopshere of steam, some vaporized iron. They can also have powerful magnetic fields, which can generate lots of radio emission.
3/ Normally they're found in the infrared, since they're warm(ish). But now for the very first time astronomers found one using a radio telescope! It's called BDR J1750+3809, it's ~200 light years away, and is a powerful radio source.
4/ It's not clear why, but it may build up energy in its magnetic field, releasing it all at once in a big burst, so it looks bright to a radio 'scope. It's faint even in giant infrared telescopes, making it easy to miss, and making me wonder how many like it are out there.
5/ The radio 'scope was specifically looking for radio-bright BDs, so the one it found is likely to be the brightest and easiest to see. So there could be lots more out there. And we know BDs are extremely common, with many billions in the galaxy floating between the stars.
6/ Despite that, they're so faint the first ones weren't found until the mid-90s. So we're still figuring this all out. That's why this discovery is important; it's another tool we can use to spot these things.
7/ Oh, and did I mention *they can have an aurora*? The magnetic field can slam particles into the atmosphere, just like Earth's does, making the atoms glow. We might be able to spot them that way, too!
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/an-aurora-glows-over-a-possible-rogue-planet
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/an-aurora-glows-over-a-possible-rogue-planet
8/8 So yeah, brown dwarfs are incredibly cool. I studied them for a while, back when the field was young, and I miss it sometimes. But I *do* get to write about the amazing discoveries still being made, and that's fun too.
So read this! :) https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/a-blast-of-radiation-reveals-a-nearby-cold-brown-dwarf
So read this! :) https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/a-blast-of-radiation-reveals-a-nearby-cold-brown-dwarf
