Astronomy: Tuning in

Brown dwarfs are objects too small (up to about 80 times the mass of Jupiter) for normal nuclear fusion, but big enough to burn deuterium. They were expected to be only weak emitters of radio and X rays, but in late 1999, an X-ray flare was detected from the brown dwarf LP44-20. This prompted a search for radio emission, and now LP44-20 is reported to be the first brown dwarf known to emit in the radio spectrum. And stranger yet, the radio emission is 100 times stronger than expected from the 'normal' relationship between X-ray and radio emissions.

Discovery of radio emission from the brown dwarf LP944-20
E. BERGER, S. BALL, K. M. BECKER, M. CLARKE, D. A. FRAIL, T. A. FUKUDA, I. M. HOFFMAN, R. MELLON, E. MOMJIAN, N. W. MURPHY, S. H. TENG, T. WOODRUFF, B. A. ZAUDERER, R. T. ZAVALA
Nature 410, 338-340 (15 March 2001)
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Astronomy: Brown dwarf is a radio star
ARNOLD O. BENZ
Brown dwarfs are sometimes referred to as failed stars because they emit extremely little radiation. Astronomers have now found a brown dwarf that 'whistles' strongly at radio wavelengths.
Nature 410, 310-311 (15 March 2001)
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15 March 2001 table of contents