Water clouds discovered in space.

[Gingerbread Demon]

http://www.popsci.com.au/space/clouds-of-water-detected-outside-the-solar-system,430439

Fascinating.

Astronomers have discovered water clouds orbiting one of of the coldest objects beyond our solar system, specifically a brown dwarf star 7.2 light years from Earth.

WISE 0855 is the chilliest body that astronomers have been able to detect, and that's where the water clouds have been found.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

To clarify, these are evidently water clouds that have been discovered in the atmosphere of the brown dwarf WISE 0855.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

To clarify, these are evidently water clouds that have been discovered in the atmosphere of the brown dwarf WISE 0855.

Yes correct. I just realized I can't edit my subject header. I had meant to say that.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I believe it should actually be classified as a rogue planet or sub-brown dwarf as the upper estimated mass of 10 Jupiter masses is less than the 13 x Jupiter masses required to initiate deuterium fusion.

 

[publiusr]

Brown Dwarf? Phooey. I was hoping those old depictions of clouds above the globe of the Earth could be real

No need for helmets here
http://static5.comicvine.com/uploads/original/7/79025/2033229-monstarandskyrunner.jpg

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Yeah--I want my spacecraft to be a convertible...ack!!

 

[Metryq]

Yeah--I want my spacecraft to be a convertible...ack!!

"They no longer built spaceships—they were spaceships."
—2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I believe it should actually be classified as a rogue planet or sub-brown dwarf as the upper estimated mass of 10 Jupiter masses is less than the 13 x Jupiter masses required to initiate deuterium fusion.

This is what an article posted at NASA.gov says about that.

http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/wise/spitzer-coldest-brown-dwarf-20140425

WISE J085510.83-071442.5 is estimated to be 3 to 10 times the mass of Jupiter. With such a low mass, it could be a gas giant similar to Jupiter that was ejected from its star system. But scientists estimate it is probably a brown dwarf rather than a planet since brown dwarfs are known to be fairly common. If so, it is one of the least massive brown dwarfs known.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

According to the IAU classification, it's a sub-brown dwarf as it's not massive for deuterium fusion to initiate.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

According to the IAU classification, it's a sub-brown dwarf as it's not massive for deuterium fusion to initiate.

WISE 0855 is clearly a corner case that is the topic of ongoing investigation. Your link also says, "We can expect this definition to evolve as our knowledge improves."

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Brown Dwarf? Phooey. I was hoping those old depictions of clouds above the globe of the Earth could be real

No need for helmets here
http://static5.comicvine.com/uploads/original/7/79025/2033229-monstarandskyrunner.jpg

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Yeah--I want my spacecraft to be a convertible...ack!!

Loved that show..........

Always got me how every fricking week Monstar would get up to evil evilness and the next week he'd do it all over again. What no jail?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

WISE 0855 is clearly a corner case that is the topic of ongoing investigation. Your link also says, "We can expect this definition to evolve as our knowledge improves."

It's another one of those tedious and ultimately meaningless categorisation debates, as happened with Pluto. The transition to the deuterium fusion regime is arbitrarily defined so if you want to call it a brown dwarf, fair enough.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's another one of those tedious and ultimately meaningless categorisation debates, as happened with Pluto. The transition to the deuterium fusion regime is arbitrarily defined so if you want to call it a brown dwarf, fair enough.

It was NASA that said it's believed to be probably a brown dwarf, not I.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Well IAU trumps NASA so

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Well IAU trumps NASA so

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

It's certainly not film noir.

 

[{ Emilia }]

It's certainly not film noir.

How about we keep the film noir discussion in the relevant forum instead of following another poster around the board to irritate him with vague unrelated remarks in other threads.

Anyway, back to water clouds. I hear they're in space.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Ok if this is a brown dwarf how can it hold or sustain water?

I thought those were like a dead star?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I think you're confusing it with a black dwarf, sometimes defined as a white dwarf that is cooler than 5K -- the universe isn't old enough to contain any black dwarfs yet, however. A brown dwarf is intermediate in mass between a planet and a star and has just enough mass to initiate deuterium fusion in its core but not enough mass to initiate hydrogen (p-p) fusion.

 

[Dryson]

Has NASA determined the estimated volume of the water clouds in the atmosphere of WISE 0855?
Would the clouds be frozen or would the clouds be in a gaseous state?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The original paper is here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.04902

Exoplanets and brown dwarfs cooler than ∼350 K are expected to form water ice clouds in their upper atmospheres which are optically thick enough to alter the emergent spectrum.

It doesn't seem unlikely that circulation between the ice, liquid, and vapour phases could be present.