this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] Zier@fedia.io 22 points 1 week ago

Borg Sphere Model 2025

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

So how come there's an aurora when there's no star to spray it with electromagnetic radiation?

[–] KingGimpicus@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Because the planet produces its own radiation. That much mass means this is less a "planet" and more of a proto star. It's actually large enough to fuse deuterium if the right conditions arise. Pour enough hydrogen in there to raise the mass three of four times what it has now and it'd be comparable to our sun.

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[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

better question, is a star required for EMR?

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Nah, that's a yes or no question, that's a worse question. I want to know what's causing the aurora, if not a star.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

Name seems wrong but you do you, SIMP 0136

[–] BaroqueInMind@piefed.social 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Likely a brown dwarf or magnetar

[–] Naz@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Looks like a brown dwarf, especially from the Wiki page

[–] yakko@feddit.uk 6 points 1 week ago

I was going to say, I read somewhere at uni that if Jupiter was 14 times as large, it would have become a brown dwarf.

[–] pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 1 week ago

He's just jealous 'cause the dorks on Earth called him a failed star.

[–] Bazell@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 week ago

Lonely queen.

[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

That's looks like a picture of Jupiter, or an artists impression of it, and there's a star needed for an aurora to happen.

Any scientific sources to back this story up?

[–] Midnitte@beehaw.org 16 points 1 week ago

No it is indeed an artists impression of the planet - it's on the wiki page.

I'm assuming that aurora only needs solar wind to happen on earth - or that solar wind outside the heliosphere is strong enough you don't need a star for it to happen.

In 2018 astronomers said "Detecting SIMP J01365663+0933473 with the VLA through its auroral radio emission, also means that we may have a new way of detecting exoplanets, including the elusive rogue ones not orbiting a parent star ...

[–] InappropriateEmote@hexbear.net 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The picture is definitely just some artist's conception, but it's not claimed to be a photo or meant to be anything other than what it is, an artist's conception. You're right that for the most part, a star is needed for aurora, at least for the kind of aurora we have on Earth since it depends on the solar wind interacting with the planet's magnetic field. But if there is anything that can be said about what we've discovered astronomically in the last century or so it's that there are always exceptions to every supposed rule.

The authors attribute the auroras to SIMP-0136’s magnetic field being vastly more powerful than Jupiter’s (750 times stronger according to a previous study). Electrons (presumably stripped from atoms by internal processes) would flow with the field and hit atmospheric molecules fast enough to make them glow, they conclude.

Aside from the aurora part though, none of this is exceptional or rare (and maybe even the aurora part isn't rare either). Rogue planets are probably extremely common, possibly even more common than planets that are gravitationally bound in a star system. And objects of this size, which is really around where we'd start calling it a brown dwarf, are also very common, with more of them than there are main sequence stars.

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[–] very_well_lost@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Simping for magnetism

My new band name

[–] DylanMc6@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

simp 0136 really needs love. seriously!

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