Brown Dwarf Wind Speed Measured
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Text, News From The Universe. May 7, 2020
Brown Dwarf Wind Speed Measured
For the first time, scientists have directly measured wind speed on a brown dwarf.
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At 1,425 mph (2,293 kph), the winds were much faster than those of Neptune, which has the fastest winds in our solar system.
Astronomers combined radio data from the Janksy Very Large Array with past infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
Radio measured the strong magnetic field of the brown dwarf's dense gas interior, while infrared clocked the free-moving upper layers of gas.
Graphic compares sizes of a low mass star, a Brown Dwarf, Jupiter and Earth.
Text, Brown dwarfs are gas bodies that are larger than gas giant planets like Jupiter, but smaller than a Star.
Astronomers tested the same method on Jupiter, confirming it matched up with other measuresments of Jupiter's winds.
The method will be useful in future study of gas giant worlds in other solar systems.
his news was brought to you in part by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA