'Dark sun' is one of our nearest neighbors

www.newscientist.com...

Quote from source:
A dim object less than 10 light years from Earth appears to be the closest brown dwarf yet found. The "star" is so cold that any residents on an orbiting planet would see a dark sun in their starry "daytime" sky.

The discovery suggests that brown dwarfs are common and that the objects could exist even closer to Earth.

Brown dwarfs have so little mass that they never get hot enough to sustain the nuclear fusion reactions that power stars like the sun. Still, they do shine, because they glow from the heat of their formation, then cool and fade.

Philip Lucas of the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK, and his colleagues discovered the brown dwarf, named UGPS 0722-05, from the infrared radiation it gives off. It is only about 9.6 light years from Earth, a bit more than twice as far as Proxima Centauri, our nearest star after the sun.

At that distance, it is the seventh closest star or star system to the sun. Not since 1947 have astronomers uncovered a new star so close to Earth.

Parallax view

"Great stuff!" says Todd Henry, a nearby-star researcher at Georgia State University in Atlanta, who was not part of the team. "This discovery is as cool as its temperature."

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4d0c6d3d18f0.jpg[/atsimg]

Cool article and thought I would share it with all of you. So the closest brown dwarf is 10 light years away, but they could be closer. I hope this will bring some science to the people that think this planet x or whatever is going to be here in a few years.

This is real science backed up with evidence. I hope that a lot of people take the time to read this.

Any thoughts?

Pred...

Hi
I've posted a link to a video showing our solar neighberhood. with the location of the brown dwarf already discovered.

You can find it right here. Brown dwarf thread last post on page one.

[edit on 10-4-2010 by Sinter Klaas]

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


Thanks you very much for your post and awesome video.

I tried to find it on youtube but no luck, if you type in brown dwarf on you tube, WOW, I am surprised it doesn't melt down with all the planet x stuff.

Pred...

Very interesting.
I thought alpha centauri was the closest. So I did a search on bing, and clicked on this link...
business.fortunecity.com...

The page isn't easy on the eyes; black back-ground with white letters/fonts.

Our sun's nearest neighbour is Proxima Centauri, a tiny Red Dwarf star some 4.22 lightyears away from us, third member of the Alpha Centauri triple system.

Learning new things everyday, thanks to ATS members.

ETA After further study, I'm calling BS on my own link. Sorry about that.

[edit on (4/10/1010 by loveguy]

reply to post by loveguy


thanks for the info!!

I looked up the name they gave as our nearest star and it appears to be right on as per Wiki.

They name it Proxima Centauri, so I wonder why it has 2 different names, seeing as they describe the same star,

Pred...

Carry on but please try to keep the focus on UGPS 0722-05.




[edit on Sun Apr 11 2010 by Jbird]