“Incidentally, I don’t think of Brown dwarfs as being “failed stars” so much as “really, really, successful Jupiters!””

Lead melts at 327C

CFSD..etc ..numerals … is a horrible name though – lets give a proper one like, say, New Chile!

Incidentally, I don’t think of Brown dwarfs as being “failed stars” so much as “really, really, successful Jupiters!”

Given ‘NewChile” is cooler than the surface of Venus & the (currently)sunny side of Mercury, I’m curious over whether lead would melt there – would it?

(It would on Venus / sunnyside Mercury hence my qu.)

That’s one awesome and very true statement that encapsulates what life means to me: Sniff the flowers, greet a stranger, protect a child, and just generally observe what’s around you.

Thanks, Phil, and thanks for the always great posts.

way to completely ruin my fun. jerk. why’d you have to go and bring reality into a complete fantasy?

sheesh.

(yes, I kid)

@jeremy – remember 0-100 C is at Earth pressure, so it won’t be the same on the star. The surface gravity is probably 5 times that on Earth.
The more massive a body, the longer it takes to cool down, and especially at lower temperatures because it’s not radiating as much energy (per time), so it could be in the range of liquid water for millions of years. I personally doubt the existence of life on a brown dwarf: I don’t see various, more complicated, molecules being able to form

@gnat – It won’t be a dense rock. Stars (and I assume brown dwarfs) are comprised almost entirely of Hydrogen, and the fact that this is fairly old would suggest lower metallicity. Since it cannot sustain fusion, it won’t form the heavier elements to form rock (Carbon or silicon for instance) – at best it will form some Helium.

Our Sun has an atmosphere above the photosphere (where the plasma is no longer opaque).

As for completely cooling, it would asymptotically approach whatever the CMB radiation temperature is at the time.

@Chip – If I recall correctly, the first definitive exoplanet was found around a Pulsar! How bizarre: that would certainly seem unlikely. I see no reason why an Earth body would be any less likely around this star than the Sun.

You can’t even cook a decent steak on that thing.

Que? The core temperature of a medium steak is 60 Celsius – this girl is 350 Celsius hot. Grilling can be a tad less (from say 340 Celsius). With the pressures involved I don’t think conduction will be a problem.

Btw, to do a decent steak at low temperatures you can do a “tjälknut”, roast a steak 10-12 h @ 100 Celsius in oven until done.

Can anything that exists be weird? It is what it is.

Dan: Wow. Do we sound like a bunch of haters or what? Oh yeah. It’s always fun picking on the weak ones, isn’t it? Huh?

(blank stare)

What?!

You from the Brown Dwarf Defense League or something?

If we imagine an Earth-like planet orbiting it at just the right distance to allow us to go outside without winter coats and gloves* – daytime light from a Brown Dwarf would probably not result in a blue sky. Our planet might also find itself in tidal lock around this tiny star which could make for weird weather patterns. Yes – its fun to imagine – stretches to mind!

* I realize its probably unlikely that planets just like Earth could form around brown dwarfs but let’s pretend it got moved there.

Once the temperature gets below 100C, and liquid water is able to form…. how long would it last in that range of 0-100C? Then, how bad is the actual radiation? What would the gravity be like on the surface of a brown dwarf?

What I’m getting at is…. could these support life? By that, I don’t mean you and I – I mean independently evolved organisms of whatever sort that would be able to survive this environment.

Seems there’s energy to be used – add in some organic soup of some sort, and off you go – just have a couple of comets and ice chunks slamming in, and soup is served.

OF COURSE, I am not a physicist / astronomer / anything remotely related, so it’s entirely possible that this entire comment is nonesense, but it was a nice though experiment on my end.

What, without pants?

I’d say these will be really tough to find. Being so cool, if they are in orbit around another star they’d be nearly impossible to see. This one was isolated and floating free making it a little “easier”.

hahaha…

Another question: how long will it take to completely cool?