The Coldest Star In The Universe Goes To...
WD 0806-661 B, a brown dwarf (artist's rendition, lower right) orbiting a white dwarf (interracial orbiting FTW!) some 75-light years from earth. Shit, pack a picnic and let's go! "GW? You don't actually know how far a light-year is, do you?" OVER 1,000 WATTS! Extra mayo on my sandwich BTW.
The American scientists looked at the age of the white dwarf in the WD 0806-661 system, and came up with a figure of about 1.5 billion years. They then estimated the mass of the companion, and used the data from Spitzer [the space telescope, not the gubernatorial whore-monger], which sees in the infrared part of the spectrum.
From that, they got a temperature of about 300 degrees Kelvin, or 27 degrees C (~81 ºF), or about the average daytime temperature of Washington, D.C. in June. If confirmed it would be the coldest brown dwarf ever discovered. An average star has a surface temperature measured in the thousands of degrees -- the Sun's surface temperature is 5,500 degrees C.
Speaking of brown dwarfs, I drove to Tijuana once with a couple buddies and we ended up in this backalley sex-circus where they had a-- *phone ringing* Don't tell that one? Woopsie doopsie. Never been to Mexico, heard it's beautiful.
Astronomers Find The Coldest Stars In The Universe [ibtimes]
Thanks to Inky Bloc, who's convinced all stars are just giant shining buttholes. You know, now that I think about it YOU'RE CRAZY.
-
Now I know what you're thinking, and no, you can't steal this photo to use as your new dating website profile pic. It just wouldn't be fair to Neil. This is a video (well, audio with some graphics on top) of famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson sharing what he thinks is t... / Continue →
-
That's no moon! Seriously -- it's a star, guys. There's a new coldest star in town (read: galaxy), folks, and that star is a Y brown dwarf named WISE 1828+2650. Wow, your parents must have really hated you. YOUR NAME IS A MATH PROBLEM! Y dwarfs are the dimmest stars of t... / Continue →
-
Seen here in an artist's rendition (mine -- I'm an artist) of exactly what it'll look like when while in orbit, the European Space Agency's Gaia Spacecraft will rock a 106-CCD sensor, 1-billion pixel "camera" that's over three feet wide (like my ass!) in order to create a 3-D m... / Continue →
