Scientists may have discovered the speed limit for a brown dwarf rotation
Shane McGlaun - Apr 8, 2021, 7:09am CDT
Brown dwarfs are also known as failed stars and can spin at extremely high velocities. Scientists know that a brown dwarf can spin as fast as 200,000 mph, but researchers believe there may be a limit to how fast they can rotate. NASA scientists have used data from the Spitzer Space Telescope to identify the three fastest-spinning brown dwarf stars ever discovered.
The three brown dwarfs are believed to be approaching a spin speed limit for all brown dwarfs. If they spun any faster, researchers believe they would break apart. The trio of fast rotating brown dwarfs are all roughly the same diameter as Jupiter but between 40 and 70 times more massive. Each of them rotates completely once each hour.
Three Fastest-Spinning Brown Dwarfs Discovered Using NASA s Spitzer Space Telescope sciencetimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sciencetimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
With so much variety among the brown dwarf speeds already measured, it surprised the authors of the new study that the three fastest brown dwarfs ever found have almost the exact same spin rate (about one full rotation per hour) as each other. This cannot be attributed to the brown dwarfs having formed together or being at the same stage in their development, as they are physically different: One is a warm brown dwarf, one is cold, and the other falls between them. Since brown dwarfs cool as they age, the temperature differences suggest these brown dwarfs are different ages.
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More massive than most planets but not quite heavy enough to ignite like stars, brown dwarfs are cosmic in-betweeners
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Using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have identified the three fastest-spinning brown dwarfs ever found.
More massive than most planets but not quite heavy enough to ignite like stars, brown dwarfs are cosmic in-betweeners. And though they aren’t as well known as stars and planets to most people, they are thought to number in the billions in our galaxy.
In a study appearing in the