Rome, Aug. 3, 2015 – For the first time in history, an international team of astronomers observed an auroral extrasolar outside of our solar system, around a brown dwarf is about 18 light years from Earth. Astronomers explain that this unexpected and exciting phenomenon would be powered by mechanisms other than those that produce the aurora borealis on our planet, and instead very similar to those found on Jupiter, even though tens of thousands of times more intense.
The aurora borealis was produced by brown dwarf “LSR J1835 + 3259″, a so-called failed star, located in the constellation Lyra. According to experts, the northern lights would be powered by a process other than the one that produces the auroras on Earth, especially because thousands of times more powerful even than that of the other planets in our solar system.
The sighting of the Northern Lights extrasolar was captured by three of the most powerful telescopes in the world are located in New Mexico, California and Hawaii.
“It seems a similar mechanism what triggers auroras on Jupiter, but 10,000 times more powerful. E ‘of at least four orders of magnitude higher than that produced in the magnetosphere of Jupiter. This means that these auroras could be a signature of magnetospheres large scale and which might also have a role in the feeding of meteorological phenomena detected in previous studies on brown dwarfs “
the authors explain the study in an article published in Nature.
Brown dwarfs have atmospheres cloudy like planets, although composed of minerals that form rocks on our planet, say the authors of the research, noting that now we know more which are also home to powerful auroras.
“The observation suggests the need for a rethinking about what are these heavenly bodies. Brown dwarfs bridge the gap between stars and planets, but these results show that we should think of them more as the over-sized planets that failed stars “
said Stuart Littlefair University of Sheffield , co-author of the research.
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