• Victor@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    So how come there’s an aurora when there’s no star to spray it with electromagnetic radiation?

  • TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 hours ago

    That’s looks like a picture of Jupiter, or an artists impression of it, and there’s a star needed for an aurora to happen.

    Any scientific sources to back this story up?

    • The picture is definitely just some artist’s conception, but it’s not claimed to be a photo or meant to be anything other than what it is, an artist’s conception. You’re right that for the most part, a star is needed for aurora, at least for the kind of aurora we have on Earth since it depends on the solar wind interacting with the planet’s magnetic field. But if there is anything that can be said about what we’ve discovered astronomically in the last century or so it’s that there are always exceptions to every supposed rule.

      The authors attribute the auroras to SIMP-0136’s magnetic field being vastly more powerful than Jupiter’s (750 times stronger according to a previous study). Electrons (presumably stripped from atoms by internal processes) would flow with the field and hit atmospheric molecules fast enough to make them glow, they conclude.

      Aside from the aurora part though, none of this is exceptional or rare (and maybe even the aurora part isn’t rare either). Rogue planets are probably extremely common, possibly even more common than planets that are gravitationally bound in a star system. And objects of this size, which is really around where we’d start calling it a brown dwarf, are also very common, with more of them than there are main sequence stars.

    • Midnitte@beehaw.org
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      3 hours ago

      No it is indeed an artists impression of the planet - it’s on the wiki page.

      I’m assuming that aurora only needs solar wind to happen on earth - or that solar wind outside the heliosphere is strong enough you don’t need a star for it to happen.

      In 2018 astronomers said "Detecting SIMP J01365663+0933473 with the VLA through its auroral radio emission, also means that we may have a new way of detecting exoplanets, including the elusive rogue ones not orbiting a parent star …

  • BenLeMan@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Strangely attracted to distant stars yet unable to establish a stable orbit, Simp 0136 is condemned to a lonely existence.

  • BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
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    10 hours ago

    Interesting, I just finished reading Rendezvous With Rama.

    If a massive object like that was to pass through our neighbourhood I think it could fling planets out of the solar system.

    • Evil_Shrubbery@lemmy.zip
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      4 hours ago

      I love that whole series, amazing books!!

      But yes, this simp is basically a failed star that was prob flung out of some nursery.

    • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 hours ago

      Even with this mass this planet would have to pass one of the outer planets extremely close and quite slowly to have a chance of dragging a planet out of the solar system.

      This is the same sort of idea as when galaxies merge. There is little chance of our solar system being effected in that scenario. There is just too much space to space.

          • MohamedMoney@feddit.org
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            4 hours ago

            Thank you but I didn’t mean andromeda. I think heard something about merging with a dwarf galaxy or something

            • Victor@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              You’d think we would be able to see a dwarf galaxy approaching close to our galaxy at night? Or how dwarfey are we talking?

              • MohamedMoney@feddit.org
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                2 hours ago

                I don’t know why you bring up being able to see the dwarf galaxy at night as a qualifier. The dwarf galaxy I’m talking about seems to be Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy

                • Victor@lemmy.world
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                  22 minutes ago

                  I don’t know why you bring up being able to see the dwarf galaxy at night as a qualifier.

                  Because a whole ass galaxy should be visible, I would think, but I also asked how small we’re talking — maybe it wouldn’t be visible. You know?

                  Anyway,

                  The Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, a small satellite of the Milky Way that is leaving a stream of stars behind as an effect of our Galaxy’s gravitational tug, is visible as an elongated feature below the Galactic centre and pointing in the downwards direction in the all-sky map of the density of stars observed by ESA’s Gaia mission between July 2014 to May 2016.

                  Scientists analysing data from Gaia’s second release have shown our Milky Way galaxy is still enduring the effects of a near collision that set millions of stars moving like ripples on a pond. The close encounter likely took place sometime in the past 300–900 million years, and the culprit could be the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy.

                  Seems like it was only a near collision eons ago, but maybe it’s still on a an absorption path to be consumed by The Milky Way in the future. Cool, didn’t know about that.

          • Victor@lemmy.world
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            4 hours ago

            Haven’t even begun colliding though. We can still see it way in the distance. It’s millions/billions of years away until colliding.

            Imagine the night sky far in galactic future when Andromeda is like directly overhead at night. What an amazing view. Shame earth wouldn’t be around to see it.

        • reddit_sux@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          Yes we are in middle of a multi million year process of merging of the bigger Andromeda galaxy and our Milky Way galaxy.

    • Clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works
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      10 hours ago

      That’s one of my very favorite books. It’s fantastic at setting the mood. The further books are ok but not as much to my taste.

      • Evil_Shrubbery@lemmy.zip
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        4 hours ago

        Oh, I absolutely loved all of them, but it’s def a different kind of sci-fi (less human-techy) compared to the first book.

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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        7 hours ago

        I still need to read the book! My main familiarity with RAMA is the 199(5?) PC game that was mind bogglingly obtuse with math puzzles but the world was SO fascinating! I need to figure out how to play it again with my grown up brain…

        The soundtrack was INCREDIBLE…

    • plyth@feddit.org
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      7 hours ago

      Detecting SIMP J01365663+0933473 with the VLA through its auroral radio emission,