Extrasolar Storms: Hows the Weather way out there? Using simultaneous observations from Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, UA astronomers are tracking the evolution of swirling clouds and storm systems in unprecedented detail on a #brown #dwarf 24 light yrs away and 5 others like it. GOAL of the #Extrasolar #Storms campaign is to discover how clouds and weather systems change over time on other worlds. With brown dwarf cloud systems changing in minutes, hours and years, the galaxy looks like a dark and stormy place. Brown dwarfs are similar to giant planets, but they are more massive and much hotter, >>They will investigate the physics and chemistry behind their stormy worlds. Our current observing abilities cannot study extrasolar planets in very much detail because theyre small, faint and far away, ...On the other hand, brown dwarfs are bright, and Hubble and other telescopes can study brown dwarfs in detail and help us #understand #extrasolar #planets. Brown dwarfs are much #cooler than stars such as the sun, slowly shedding heat for the rest of their existence after quickly burning off what little nuclear fuel they had early in their lives. >>#clouds condense in layers according to altitude. But unlike Earths water vapor clouds, a brown dwarfs exotic clouds also can be composed of #silicon, #magnesium, #aluminum and even #iron with winds howling at hundreds of miles per hour and can harbor enormous, hurricanelike storms spanning many Earths in size. >>Every dwarf spins on its axis, anywhere from once every few hours to up to 13 hrs—which creates a recurring change in brightness that can be recorded. Changes in this light rhythm because of clouds in different parts of the dwarfs atmosphere can be extreme, raising and lowering the amount of recorded light from less than 1- 27% in the case of one brown dwarf that is thought to have especially huge storms dwarfing Jupiters Great Red Spot. In the future...we can use this to map planets similar to Earth. We will be able to identify continents and oceans, which would provide very important context for looking for life on those targets. phys.org/news/2015-01-extrasolar-storms-weather.html#jCp
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:32:15 +0000
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