07-31-2015, 04:39 PM
(07-30-2015, 05:21 PM)stevebowers Wrote:Quote:"We already known from observations of brown dwarves that they have clouds in the atmosphere. Now we know they also show auroras, it is yet more reason to consider brown dwarves as scaled-up versions of planets rather than scaled-down version of stars."
Interesting. Are the planets around a brown dwarf more like moons?
Note the use of 'dwarves' in this article; I'm pretty sure it should be 'dwarfs' (this is one of my pet peeves).
Yup. You can blame Tolkein, I think. IIRC, "dwarves" was meant to apply to members of the ancient race of Middle-Earth who had a separate creation from the other free races. Not to small adult humans or, as in this case, small stars.
Unfortunately, that sort of fine distinction tends to get lost.
Regarding the issue of planets vs. moons - of course that's a matter of definition; Pluto didn't change because a few hundred humans decided to call it something different. Maybe the answer to that question depends on whether the brown dwarf is in orbit around a star?