by Andy Lloyd
Brown Dwarf Flares
Brown dwarfs also display unpredictable behavior. They are capable of emitting intense flares detectable in the X-Ray range. This is similar to those flares emitted by stars. Because Brown dwarfs are thought to behave more like gas giants, this was an unexpected discovery.7 The intense activity appears to be the result of turbulent magnetized material below the surface of the brown dwarf, heating the atmosphere and giving rise to intense X-ray flares, rather like storms on Earth create lightning.8,9
In the Chapter,The Sumerian 'Nibiru', we looked at some of the ancient descriptions of the Dark Star, known in the creation myths as Marduk. These flare-like properties are clearly in keeping with the Babylonian god's ability to breathe fire! Brown dwarfs, although dim, are clearly emitting light to some degree. At times, they seem to emit a great deal of light.
Brown dwarfs are at their brightest when young, particularly under 1 million years. In 2000, the Hubble Space Telescope focused its attention on 2 sets of these young brown dwarfs, as they emerged from their respective birth-places some 1,500 light years away. The images show piercing red stars, as predicted by the various models describing very young brown dwarfs.10 As brown dwarfs get older, their ability to radiate light diminishes rapidly, explaining the apparent ease with which these much younger clusters of brown dwarfs were photographed at a distance of 1,500 light years. Other, older brown dwarfs in our vicinity continue to prove difficult to image despite being significantly closer. The Dark Star is as old as the sun, so its light emission will be substantially dimmer than these objects: in fact, many orders of magnitude less.
But the fact that older brown dwarfs emit strong flares indicates that a Dark Star is anything but 'dead'. Privately, experts on brown dwarfs consider it likely that the smaller, older variety might yet hold some surprises of its own. Despite the age of our Dark Star, the density of these objects creates intense surface gravity which consequently affects their magnetic activity, thereby leading to flares and intense storms.
Weather Patterns of Brown Dwarfs
Astronomers specializing in the study of brown dwarfs have been trying to explain why many of these objects are brighter than expected to be according to theory. Common sense would dictate that as brown dwarfs cool over time, their relative brightness should also diminish. Apparently, this is not necessarily the case.
Using weather models derived from Jupiter's own atmospheric system, and applying them to brown dwarfs, a model has emerged which may explain the anomaly. Brown dwarfs emit a faint glow, like an ember from a fire that gives off both heat and light energy as it dims.11 This glow can be monitored by scientists using infra-ed detection equipment.
The reduction in this glow as the brown dwarf ages is not as linear as it was once believed. For a while, at least, brown dwarfs appear to get brighter as they cool. This may be due to fluctuations in upper atmospheric conditions. The higher cloud layer may part, exposing the inner regions of the brown dwarf, and allowing significant sources of heat to be recorded. In other words, the weather systems of a brown dwarf produce fluctuations in the heat and light they emit, making them less predictable objects to study.
Light-emitting Planets
The term 'light-emitting planet' has been used to describe free-floating planets which are so young that they emit light, and can be imaged.12 Such discoveries overturn our entire understanding of the difference between stars and planets.
Of particular interest is the fact that these 'planets' are free-floating, as Nibiru was before crashing through the planetary zone 4 billion years ago. These wandering light emitting planets may provide us with a model of what happened to our own star system shortly after its birth; nomadic giant planet-sized entities Was the Dark Star such an entity, propelled from another star's proto-planetary disc to find itself crashing into our sun's own young planetary system?
We now know that many of the newly discovered 'extrasolar planets' have eccentric orbits, indicating that non-circular orbital arrangements in star systems might be fairly normal.13 In at least one case, a brown dwarf has been found embedded within a 'normal' extrasolar planetary system, without its presence seeming to create chaos among the other planets.14,15 The birth of planetary systems appears to be anything but simple.
In relation to the Dark Star Theory, the modern understanding of these failed stars appears to offer an ideal platform to explore the concept of an inhabitable world in our comet-cloud, as described by the Sumerians. A world orbiting a dark star that is essentially invisible to us, but that emits massive amount of heat and enough low-frequency light to support life, whilst not subjecting the denizens of that world to the sort of harmful radiation we are subject to from our sun.
Could this also explain the almost immortal life-spans that Sitchin claims for the Anunnaki? One might speculate that our woefully short life-spans are due to our constant exposure to high energy particles radiated from the sun. Astronaut 'Gods' coming to our world might find their life-spans significantly shortened, as well as the subsequent life expectancies of their children. Life on Earth is necessarily mortal. Perhaps the less hostile environment of a habitable moon orbiting a brown dwarf would help to extend the human life cycle.
Brown Dwarfs Have Planets Too!
When we talk about brown dwarfs, we are walking the line between stars and planets. Their properties fall into one camp or another, and one of the more important distinctions to be made is when the brown dwarf is forming. Does it form like a star does, in a stellar nursery, or is the brown dwarf simply an over-sized planet? Research by Ray Jayawardhana of the University of Michigan would tend to suggest that they follow the star route.16
Dr. Jayawardhana also indicates that young brown dwarfs have dust discs, in a similar way to the proto-planetary discs of stars, and that these may allow the formation of planets around brown dwarfs as well. Indeed, it seems quite possible that brown dwarfs could have an entire retinue of asteroids, comets and planets which formed in these discs during the early period of the life of the parent brown dwarf.16
Let us say, then, that the sun was born in a stellar nursery, whose environment was fairly dense with other simultaneous star formations. Let us say that a brown dwarf was born in the sun's vicinity, and gravitationally held to it as a distant binary. If that binary failed star, or small brown dwarf, followed Dr. Jayawardhana's logic, then it would have its own dust disc and the potential for the creation of its own system of planets/moons, comets and asteroids. These would then form separately from the sun, excluding us from having to account for their formation from the accretion models of the sun's own proto-planetary disc. In one fell swoop, we can avoid a whole raft of objections to the potential existence of a massive solar companion.
The Chaos of Star Birth
The stellar nurseries containing new born stars are sometimes densely packed. Astronomers analyzing the chaotic conditions of star-birth have noticed that stars can form so close together that they interact during the formation process, competing for the remaining material in the stellar environment.17 This leads to chaotic, dynamic conditions, during which proto-planets are tugged from their initial circular orbits in the accretion discs. Similarly, brown dwarfs might be ejected proto-stars that never really got the chance to accrete enough mass to become proper stars. This mechanism may explain why there appear to be as many brown dwarfs in the Milky Way galaxy as there are actual stars.
When brown dwarfs are ejected from young star systems, they take with them the material from their immediate environment. This essentially strips the young star system of some of its outer proto-planetary disc. It is thought that this mechanism explains why some proto-planetary discs are seen to be curtailed, what astronomers refer to as 'truncation'.17 If brown dwarfs are as common as thought, then examples of this kind of truncated disc should be common, and there should be a measurably shortened 'edge' to the planetary zone of a given star, stripped of a brown dwarf companion.
Our own solar system appears to have a h
ealthy series of planets, implying that it did not itself lose a brown dwarf during its early development. However, it also has a measurable 'gap' in its outer regions, known as the Kuiper Gap. This implies some kind of dynamic process having occurred there, which is at the moment unexplained.
But, losing brown dwarfs from star systems is not the only new mechanism being considered by astronomers. A brown dwarf has also been imaged orbiting its parent star at a distance of 14 AU, equivalent to a position between Saturn and Uranus in our system.18 This was not thought to be possible, given our present understanding of planet formation in the outer regions of planetary zones. Some other process appears to be taking place. Again, this opens the door for new science, and increases the likelihood that we may yet find a Dark Star orbiting our own sun.
The Age of the Companion
When we consider the possibility that our sun might harbour a binary companion, or may have had one in the distant past, we are dealing with two possibilities: it formed alongside the sun as a classic Binary star system, or it was captured after the sun was born.
If it was born into the solar system, then it is the same age as the sun i.e. 4.6 billion years old. An established companion brown dwarf is likely to have been born in the same cluster as the sun, complete with its own proto-planetary disc.
If the companion is a captured object, then it probably became so 3.9 billion years ago during the "late, great bombardment". But, the chances that a brown dwarf from interstellar space moved so close to the sun that it became captured is remote. Of course, nothing is impossible, but statistically it is unlikely, even taking into account the probability that there are a similar number of brown dwarfs in the galaxy as stars.
However, when the solar system first formed, the density of stars and brown dwarfs in the immediate neighborhood was much greater, and so such a capture was more likely. In that case, a captured object is also likely to be of a similar age as the sun, having been born into the same stellar nursery.
So, the likely age for a binary brown dwarf companion is that of the sun, except in the extreme example of a more recently captured interstellar object. This means that a proposed binary companion will be old, small and thus very dim in terms of its luminosity. This, of course, is why none has been discovered orbiting the sun so far, given the kinds of orbital distances we are talking about. Just because we have not yet found a companion, does not rule out the possibility that one exists.
Even the infrared sky-search IRAS left room for doubt, as we have seen. Some sources detected by IRAS are still to be examined, meaning that some data from the 20-year old sky-search is still left untouched by scientists.
Perhaps aware of this short-coming, there are a large number of new sky-searches due to begin work in the next few years. Our updated abilities to detect increasingly cold and dim objects in the solar neighborhood are orders of magnitude better than IRAS was, allowing scientists to probe the skies for a greater range of cool and dark objects in the sun's vicinity. This also means that within the next decade, scientists should be able to state with greater authority whether the sun is truly alone with its present cohort of planets, or whether new additions to its flock must be added on.
The Dark Star
When I first started writing and researching this subject in the late 1990's, I was working on the basis that every celestial object bigger than Jupiter but smaller than the sun, could be categorized as a brown dwarf. So, when I talked about Sitchin's mythological planet being a brown dwarf, I was allowing for a huge range of possibilities...after all, the sun is about 1000 times as massive as Jupiter.
But for my theory to hold ground, it became increasingly evident that my Dark Star must be much closer to Jupiter's mass than the sun's. In fact, it was likely to be smaller than the minimum requirement for its inclusion in the brown dwarf set. It was a 'sub-brown dwarf', whose mass was less than 12 Jupiters. The reason I came to this conclusion was that a more classic brown dwarf-sized object would produce enough light to have been detected, even given the great distances involved, along with the extended age of the Dark Star.
It is a fact that 'planets' a few times larger than Jupiter are denser than it is, and hence actually smaller. It is also true that they would be warmer, yet less reflective of the sun's light: as its upper cloud-layers would be darker, hence more absorbent of light. So, for example, a sub-brown dwarf of several Jupiter masses that was located next to Jupiter, would actually be smaller and also less luminous than its bright brother. It would simply be warmer, like the embers of an extinguished fire.
But the Dark Star isn't located near Jupiter; it is likely to be at least 100 times further away. It can thus defy detection, at least for the time being. Within the next few years, that situation could easily change as the new detection systems come into line.
The best chance lies with a system now called WISE (previously NGSS).19 This project actually has as part of its scientific remit, the task of discovering brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood. Another system, called SIRTF, will hunt down infrared sources to a much better accuracy than IRAS, to the extent that any 'Dark Stars' within about 30 light-years should be discovered.20
Readers new to this subject might find this all rather far-fetched. How could we not have discovered such massive bodies so close to us, when we have the capability to see the most remote galaxies in the Universe? Yet, this is not that unlikely.
Charles J. Lada, of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, has spoken publicly about the possibility of discovering planets orbiting around a nearby free-floating brown dwarf. He expects that this brown dwarf would be discovered outside the solar system, at a minimum distance of 1 light year21, a quarter of the distance of the nearest star. This kind of thinking is clearly not science fiction.
A New Breed of Brown Dwarfs
Although hard facts about brown dwarfs are still fairly hard to come by, particularly for the smaller ones, they have already been split into sub-species. Between them, they cover quite a range of masses, starting from 12 times the mass of Jupiter. These cooler brown dwarfs, at the lower end of the scale, are known as T-dwarfs. These bodies are thought to be dimly magenta after the initial flourish of their youth is over22, which gives us a possible color for our Dark Star.
But it is also possible that the Dark Star lies on the edge of the brown dwarf spectrum. It is too large to be simply a massive gas giant, but its stellar properties may be too minimal to allow it to be classed as a brown dwarf. It would fit into a class of objects that have yet to be properly defined or studied. However, astronomers are contemplating what these sub-brown dwarfs might be like, with accompanying speculation that there might be at least one more stellar class beyond the T-dwarfs.23
If the Dark Star was to be discovered here in our solar system, this would clearly be the opportunity that astronomers have been waiting for. At the present time, the knowledge of these small sub-brown dwarfs is limited, even at a theoretical level. We do not know the extent of their stellar characteristics; how warm they are, how active their atmospheres are, and how much light they emit, if any.
Their extensive magnetic fields are a mystery, and they may or may not form like regular stars. With so many unknowns, we cannot predict what scientists will discover next about these objects, and what this will tell us about a possible Dark Star orbiting our own sun. But what we can comfortably predict is that new discoveries will be forthcoming in the near future, and that, based on the history of brown dwarf studies so far, those findings will contain the unexpected.
Small Brown Dwarfs Have Their Own Planets
The discovery of a binary brown dwarf Companion in the solar system could come at any time. If it did, then scientific speculation about the existence of a planetary system orbiting even the smallest type of brown dwarf would be rife. This is because an example of just such a planetary system has been found, leading to speculation that similar examples may be observed in the future, in the case of tiny brown dwarfs.
Th
is ground-breaking direct observation was made possible because the glare of the young brown dwarf was so much smaller than that of 'regular' stars, so astronomers were able to directly image material in a disc around it. Some of this material was clumping, indicative of planet formation. It is thought that the total mass of the proto-planetary system orbiting a brown dwarf would be equivalent to about 10% of the Dwarf's own mass. That provides enough material to form a Saturn-like planet, as well as a number of terrestrial worlds.
The brown dwarf in question lies about 500 light years away, in the sky region known to astronomers as Chamaeleon I, which is a known stellar nursery. The disc was observed by the Spitzer telescope, appearing relatively bright in the infrared part of the spectrum. The finding has fuelled speculation in the scientific community, that life-supporting planets might be discovered around brown dwarfs. The observed disc itself covered the brown dwarfbrown dwarf's habitable zone; which was between 1.5-7 million kilometers away. Given that the parent dwarf is about 2000 degrees Celsius, liquid water may eventually be found at this distance among the orbiting planets.24
Finding habitable worlds in these kinds of systems might actually be easier than looking for planets in more classical star systems, where the glare of the stars makes it very difficult to image much of anything in its immediate vicinity.
The scientific team, led by Kevin Luhman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, hopes to extend its search to even smaller brown dwarfs to see how small they can get, while still allowing planetary formation. They have been studying this particular region of the sky for a while, hunting for small brown dwarfs. In 2004, they discovered a binary brown dwarf system that was separated by a distance of 240 AU. This is quite a wide separation, similar to the kind of distances envisioned for our own binary companion, thus creating an interesting precedent. The difference is that the Dark Star is likely to be in a highly elliptical orbit, creating a much greater distance at its furthest point from the sun.
