Jupiter's clouds from Cassini

orin stepanek · Post by **orin stepanek** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 3:54 am

Somewhere I read that Jupiter was a Brown Dwarf. Does this mean that it is a failed star?
It is also larger than the other eight planets put together
Orin

makc · Post by **makc** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 6:56 am

here is link to an article explaining the difference.

edit: it appears to be broken or inaccessible. you might try your way back, or its google cache, but neither shows an image. Sorry, I couldn't find anything else, but a bunch of pages saying crap like "brown dwarf is (star + planet)/2"

Empeda · Post by **Empeda** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 11:32 am

You could argue that Jupiter is a brown dwarf - the definition isn't that sharp.

A brown dwarf in basic terms is a 'star' that hasn't got enough mass to start nuclear reactions in it's core and start to shine, so you could argue that Jupiter is a brown dwarf as it doesn't have enough mass to start reactions..... but then neither has the earth/mars/venus/saturn/neptune etc so where do you draw the line?

My personal opinion is that Juptier isn't massive enough to be a brown dwarf - but I don't know the 'accepted' cut-off point.

makc · Post by **makc** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 3:12 pm

Empeda wrote:...where do you draw the line?

would you care to click on links I've provided, you'd know that

Berkley page wrote:Both red dwarfs and brown dwarfs mix the contents of their cores and their surfaces through convective heating and cooling... In contrast, because planets are formed in the agglomeration of smaller solid bodies they should be chemically differentiated at different depths, including a solid "metallic" core and gaseous upper layers.

Empeda · Post by **Empeda** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 3:55 pm

Cheers makc, sorry thought it was broken....