Missing Cosmic Link

[Dubh Aingeal]

It may be that Brown Dwarfs are the 'missing step' between the radio emissions we see generated by the planet Jupiter and what are received from pulsars. Brown dwarfs are, of course, 'failed' stars. They emit extremely strong beams of radiation, like a standard star, but are behaving on the whole more like a pulsar. 'Greg Hallinan from the National University of Ireland in Galway and his colleagues used the Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico to observe a very cool, rapidly rotating brown dwarf called TVLM 513-46546. A bright flash from the brown dwarf was observed roughly every two hours, and are very similar to those observed from pulsars. But this whole system is on a much slower and smaller scale, so it is easier for astronomers to decipher what is going on. For some time, scientists have wondered if there were similarities between this type of emission and the periodic radio beams from pulsars. Observations of TVLM 513-46546 could provide the first direct evidence for such a link."