Aurora ‘extraterrestrialis’ lights have been found on other planets

Now, as scientists are learning more about auroras, the dazzling phenomenon that cause effects like the Northern Lights, they have discovered that the effect is not restricted to planets, but can be seen on a distant brown dwarf star.

Brown dwarfs, sometimes called “failed stars”, are objects more massive than planets, yet too small to trigger the thermonuclear reactions at their cores that power stars. Similar displays are seen on other planets, and are particularly intense on Jupiter, where auroras driven by gases coming from its moon, Io, gleams with ultraviolet light. Optical measurements of the brown dwarf by the 5-meter Hale Telescope on Palomar Mountain, Calif., and the 10-meter Keck Telescope in Hawaii were also able to characterize the object.

The aurora’s colourful streaks wave green and yellow when oxygen and sodium are battered by electrons in the brown dwarf’s atmosphere.

‘We already know that brown dwarfs have cloudy atmospheres – like planets – although the clouds in brown dwarfs are made of minerals that form rocks on Earth now we know brown dwarfs host powerful auroras too.’. Instead, it might be that what is guiding them is current produced by a planet orbiting the brown dwarf. If the effect turns out to be an aurora, it would be just another reason why the “star” moniker might not quite fit the brown dwarf.

This is not the first time an aurora has been seen on other planets.

Then, using an optical telescope, they found that the brightness varied from time to time during the same period of the radio pulses, and that there was a bright feature on the surface of the brown dwarf.

All planets with magnetic fields produce auroras when charged particles in the solar wind interact with the planet’s magnetosphere, causing the particles to spiral down the planet’s magnetic field lines and collide with atoms in the atmosphere.

The astronomers observed the object, called LSR J1835+3259, using the Karl G.

The astronomers said their observations of LSR J1835+3259 indicate that the coolest stars and brown dwarfs have outer atmospheres that support auroral activity, rather than the type of magnetic activity seen on more-massive and hotter stars. “Seeing this phenomenon at a stellar object is also groundbreaking, and maybe a bit more surprising”.

As it has been recently confirmed NASA spotted strong aurora beyond our solar system for the first time on Wednesday.

“All the magnetic activity we see on this object can be explained by powerful auroras”, said Gregg Hallinan from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). This indicates that auroral activity replaces solar-like coronal activity on brown dwarfs and smaller objects.

Aurora borealis, or northern lights, on 13 March 2011 in northern Norway. This aurora is 10,000 times more powerful than any astronomers have witnessed before.

‘It’s particularly ironic that I got to discover an auroral light show which is vastly more powerful and many light years away!’. It remains uncertain where such particles might come from – perhaps interstellar gas and dust, or matter venting from a nearby volcanic planet, or plasma originally spewed upward from the brown dwarf itself, Hallinan said.

“There’s a possibility there’s something like an Io there”, says Jonathan Nichols, an advanced fellow in planetary auroras at the University of Leiceste, who was not involved in the study.