Annoying Dwarfs

Bowler1

Bowler1

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And to be even more un-PC, Red and Brown Dwarfs.

These objects are the confusing ground between Gas Giants and Stars, and we think there are a lot of them floating around out there.

So I want to fly my spaceship about here and there, and my question is, what would I see? Could these objects have moons in orbit with life on, or would these Dwarfs go dim and cool way before any life could take off (all bets are off on this question in a binary sun/dwarf set up (seemingly a common set up)). Would I have to be careful with my warp drive in case I bump into a dim Dwarf floating happily and invisibly between stars? Could Dwarfs be used as nasty villain hiding places, sort of like the James Bond volcanic island we all know and love. Would a dim (light and not brain power) Dwarf give out enough radiation to power solar energy and still be dim enough not to be seen in a visible light spectrum (for a perfect nasty villain hide away in space). Can anyone guess at how many there could be, floating out there and would they be any use to future humans? Are Dwarfs the dole lay about and failed star/life objects of the universe and of no use to anyone ever?

Needless to say I have a few questions about Dwarfs.
 
It was that news story that had me using Google to seek answers, which I didn't manage to get. But thank you all the same.
 
I hear that throwing dwarfs really annoys them...(dont get all PC on me, Gimli taught me that):whistle:
 
Bowler1 shoots Ratsy with his RAY GUNS - ZZzzzzzaaaappppPPPPP - you highjack my thread at your own risk.
 
No, they get very annoying if you call them dwarfs. The correct term is Little People

A red Dwarf star is a star too small to be Yellow sun like ours. A Brown Dwarf is a gas giant too small to run properly as a star, but probably at least x3 to x4 mass of Jupiter, so it's sort of fizzling.

A red dwarf would need planets very close for goldilocks zone. It has worse flares than our sun because less gravity, so flares would sterilise the planet, probably. A brown dwarf would not have a goldilocks zone.

If red dwarf was in a binary relationship with a hotter star, then a planet orbiting the common center of gravity might have life. A further out binary Brown Dwarf and hotter star might have planet around the primary star or moon/planet around the brown dwarf.

Very speculative about the life. More confident on dwarf definition.


EDIT:
Real life is very odd. Maybe it's a hoax article.
 
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I might be wrong but I think...

A brown dwarf is not very active; too small for hydrogen-1 fusion but bigger ones may fuse deuterium. Therefore anything orbiting it would not get a great deal of heat from it which I suspect would make life much less likely (possible I suppose if the moon is heated by tidal forces). I believe Jupiter could almost be classified as a brown dwarf. Brown dwarves range from about Jupiter sized up to maybe 0.075 solar masses.
A red dwarf is a very different beast; it is a fully active small, cool star which could have a perfectly healthy system of planets some of which might well support life.

Both would be likely to have planets/moons orbiting them

Edit: Ray got in first!
 
This might answer some of your questions:
http://www.space.com/16112-brown-dwarf-stars-sun-rare.html

So in summary there are a lot less than we thought (at least in the vicinity of us) Which is a bit weird because as objects get smaller in mass in our universe we'd expect more of them.

Adding to Ray and Vertigo's comments!

Bowler1 said:
Could these objects have moons in orbit with life on, or would these Dwarfs go dim and cool way before any life could take off
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In theory I don't see why they can't have other bodies going around these brown dwarfs. However the zone of habitability for the type of life we know - basically where water is liquid - will be so close to the dwarf as to make any development in any hypothetical world (if the world is in fact stable in such an orbit) impossible. For example I believe they found one with a Spectral temperature of hot bathwater - so essentially the habitual zone would see a world require to probably go through the surface of the dwarf.

Bowler1 said:
Would I have to be careful with my warp drive in case I bump into a dim Dwarf floating happily and invisibly between stars?
Click to expand...
Given the research above, you be damn unlucky or determined to actually hit one. Space as Douglas Adams pointed out is "...big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space"

Bowler1 said:
Dwarf give out enough radiation to power solar energy and still be dim enough not to be seen in a visible light spectrum (for a perfect nasty villain hide away in space).
Click to expand...
I think you answer your own question there - if it can't be seen in the visible light spectrum, how can you get solar energy power :). They would chuck out loads of infra-red.

Bowler1 said:
Can anyone guess at how many there could be, floating out there and would they be any use to future humans? Are Dwarfs the dole lay about and failed star/life objects of the universe and of no use to anyone ever?
Click to expand...
Depends on lots - perhaps interstellar travel, if it ever happens, is slow and would actually like short hops - so we might use any mass lying about around a brown dwarf there as a waystop or something. Otherwise pirate lair - why not!:D
 
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Infra red produces 49% of our suns energy to heat earth and allow us to live (yes, I used Google). So a hot Dwarf could be used as a hide out - cool! After all, heat is energy. I have been looking for a spot to hide in space, where a secret organisation (machine/robot/evil presence lurks) waits and bides its time to return.... Flares are an interesting problem that I've not considered, but have merit too - life can't be too easy for the bad guy.

There is a lot of unknowns around these Dwarfs, so I'm enjoying the what if's that that I can make up and very likely get away with. A little bit of science and a lot of fiction, and I can have James Bond in space - or similar.
 
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Interestingly, there was a fair bit of evidence based speculation a few years ago for a Brown or Ref Dwarf outside of the Pluto/Neptune orbits - to the extent a lot of effort was put into trying to find it. As a dedication to Asimov, it had pretty much been slated to be called 'Nemesis' if it had been found. (Whether that would have been accepted is another matter). It was never found though. Doesn't mean it's not out there. i doubt it could support life itself, but if it is out there, its near or in what is called the Oort cloud where a lot of snowballs are floating around, which could potentially be mined for resources. (Near being relative of course!)

I think one could come close to being a hidden villain island.

Its even already got the right name... :)
 
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