What are Brown Dwarfs?
Brown dwarfs are small-size objects, believed to result from condensations of fragments of molecular clouds. A brown dwarf has a small mass, too low to ignite nuclear fusion. Such a star, would be small, not much larger than Jupiter, and warm from its contraction. It would emit copious infrared radiation, thus the name “brown dwarf”. You can check the following site on brown dwarfs: http://astro.berkeley.edu/~stars/bdwarfs/formtnbd.html http://www.amsci.org/amsci/articles/97articles/mhowmany.html An HST image of the discovery of a brown dwarf around another star is found at: http://argyre.colorado.edu/life/browndwarf.html Eric Christian for Ask A High-Energy Astronomer QUESTION: Does anyone actually know what exactly Cepheid variables are and what causes the fluctuation in absolute magnitude? Also, why is the period of Population I Cepheid variables proportional to their distance from our solar system – is this a relativistic effect? ANSWER: The Cepheids are pulsating variables: The ra
