It’s hard to believe that only twenty years ago, in 1995, the first dwarf was discovered. It’s even harder to believe the substellar object was found so late when it had been a theory since the sixties.
Yet, so much can happen in so little amount of time. Recently on the astronomy front, a brown dwarf was observed to have shot off some jets, which is pretty cool for a couple of reasons.
But just in case you were confused about this and are not familiar with astronomy all too much, brown dwarfs are objects in space that are classified between being gas giants and stars. Since they navigate the middle area, it’s been tough trying to guess how they form, as not much is known about them.
Yet, most of the theories said that the dwarfs were more than likely similar to stars in how they form. So, everyone tended to go along with it, and that is why the news today is so exciting.
By studying these masses, we now understand the universe better, which is why a press release by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory spoke about the jets released by brown dwarfs in observation.
The Study about Brown Dwarfs
To help understand brown dwarfs better, an observation was conducted 450 light years away from Earth. There in the bull constellation, four of the brown dwarfs in the sample emitted jets.
This was a tad odd as this behavior usually found in stars bigger during the early part of their formation. So, scientists were a bit thrown off by this. The instruments that detected the jets relayed info by the Karl G. Jansky VLA by radio observation. Thereafter, the dwarfs were observed by different instruments in order to say that this was a real finding and not a fluke or false finding.
finding confirmed, then published
Once it was confirmed, the findings were then published in the Astrophysical Journal on the 30th of June. For all involved and the science community, the findings present the first time that a dwarf was observed displaying such a behavior. No other dwarf has been seen shooting jets in an early part of its formation.
This would mean that the theory that dwarfs form similarly to stars despite being too small to have Hydrogen-1 fusion reactions at their cores and such holds true. If dwarfs had not emitted jets or done anything like this, it would mean that the dwarfs have a similar formation to that of planets.
brown dwarf formation makes it the star’s little brother
So what does this mean? Now, just think as dwarfs as the little brother or sister to the stars. Or better yet, think of it as mini me, without as much power as a star and less mass.
Thus, there is one mystery solved about the universe, only a billion more to go. Further studies may reveal more about the behavior about dwarfs so keep a look out for those.
