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Astronomy: Astronomical objects Stub‑class Low‑importance

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Classification

Should we call this object a planemo instead of brown dwarf or sub-brown dwarf? --Artman40 (talk) 09:17, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

It has been reported as the 'coldest star' in some news sources. The discovery paper refers to it as a 'planetary-mass brown dwarf'. The further reading paper calls such objects 'Y dwarfs'. Astredita (talk) 10:17, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

The description may also eventually be changed to "rogue planet". This thing may be nowhere near the current 13-plus Jupiter mass lower threshold of a Brown dwarf. One way or another, something is going to be reclassified. 2602:306:BDA0:97A0:466D:57FF:FE90:AC45 (talk) 21:07, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I wonder why wasn't PSO J318.5-22 called brown dwarf when it was announced. --Artman40 (talk) 04:15, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

" "The Extremely Red, Young L Dwarf PSO J318-22: A Free-Floating Planetary-Mass Analog to Directly Imaged Young Gas-Giant Planets"" seems like it says it all. The confusion exists. --Smkolins (talk) 11:19, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Will it be given a comprehensible name? (For the general public, the people who fund astronomy research)

"WISE 0855–0714" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

I wonder if some of these astronomers have figured out that it is the public that funds their research.

If you make astronomy hard to follow because of names like "WISE 0855–0714", then in the long run you will have less astronomy fans in the general public and therefore less funding.

Scientific method always works best when combined with common sense.

2602:306:BDA0:97A0:466D:57FF:FE90:AC45 (talk) 21:11, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

It may at some point get a name, if it becomes popular enough. However, you have to remember that there are millions of observed objects out there, and billions total. It simply isn't feasible to give proper names to everything, so naming codes have been developed, like this one. — Huntster (t @ c) 22:00, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

The generic name is based on the objects celestial coordinates in the sky. We currently do not know a lot about the object. -- Kheider (talk) 00:13, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the link! :-)

However, I am well aware that WISE has discovered millions of objects. However something like this, 4 to 10 Jupiter masses, only about 7 light years from Earth is Notable and deserves a name. It will be good for the field of astronomy as well. The public are astronomy's primary patrons (via the government and educational institutions).

The object could still have it's science name (which could evolve as it's properties are revealed), but the "common name" would stay the same and be more accessible to the public.

Another idea would be to combine a common name with a descriptive "extension". Then the common name would remain unchanged but the last part of the extension (the descriptive part) could still be able to evolve and change as more is learned about an object.2602:306:BDA0:97A0:466D:57FF:FE90:AC45 (talk) 00:57, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this article, the graphic is extremely cool, and very helpful! https://en.wikipedia.org/File:Ecliptic_equator_galactic_anim.gif

2602:306:BDA0:97A0:466D:57FF:FE90:AC45 (talk) 01:06, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Best we can say is maybe. WISE J104915.57-531906.1 ended up as Luhman 16 so this object might go the same way.©Geni (talk) 14:22, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

observed vs modeled info

I think more care should be taken clarifying the results. The proper motion, parallax and brightness are observational and should be explained more. The mass/temperature/size estimates are modeled based on the observed brightness and distance results. Also since the planet is clearly sub-brown dwarf I don't know why this article isn't more clearly connected with the rogue planet article. --Smkolins (talk) 17:31, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Scientific literature generally refers to these objects as brown dwarfs based on the assumption that they formed from the collapse of a molecular cloud core. So this is a brown dwarf like object, unless someone can convincingly demonstrate that it formed like a planet. See: Giant planet and brown dwarf formation (Chabrier 2014) -- Kheider (talk) 18:12, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

It's more complex than that. Both the mass and the formation of the object are important. The IAU definition of a brown dwarf indicates that it burns deuterium. WISE 0855-0714 at 3 - 10 Jupiter Masses almost certainly does not burn deuterium. Therefore it is not a brown dwarf even if it formed like one. The best description for this object is "Free Floating Planetary Mass Object" or "Rogue Planet". Martin Cash (talk) 18:28, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

We have to be careful to not go into the realm of original research and synthesis. The NASA citation clearly states "brown dwarf" and gives an explanation, and Luhman's paper says this as well. Us explaining to the reader why it cannot be a brown dwarf is in violation of WP:OR, and my reading of the article as it stands looks perilously close to tipping over OR. — Huntster (t @ c) 22:36, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you, the wiki article should reflect the published science paper and the press release. We'll have to wait for future papers on this object to be published to get more of a consensus on what type of object this is. Martin Cash (talk) 01:39, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Thus - exactly - Leonidas Papadopoulos (April 28, 2014). "Between the Planet and the Star: A New Ultra-Cold, Sub-Stellar Object Discovered Close to Sun". AmericaSpace.com. --Smkolins (talk) 01:15, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Ejected planet?

NASA Discovers Coldest Brown Dwarf Neighbor of the Sun

http://www.space.com/25659-coldest-brown-dwarf-near-sun-discovery.html

This article mentions the possibility of it having simply been a large jupiter mass planet that got ejected.

Considering how gas giants can radiate more heat then they receive if they are big and massive this might be worth noting.--JSon94 (talk) 23:05, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

already being taken into account from another cite/s.--Smkolins (talk) 01:17, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Would satellites of WISE 0855–0714 be called moons or planets?

• The article Star is discovered to be a close neighbor of the sun and the coldest of its kind calls it a star and talks about what its planets would be like.
• Another similar object recently discovered MOA-2011-BLG-262 was said to have an exomoon if the main object was of planetary-mass. Astredita (talk) 01:20, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Excellent question, and entirely dependent on what scientists formally designate it (if they ever do). Considering its properties, I suspect it will be a while before any satellites are found, if there are any. We're not in a rush to make such determinations, thankfully. — Huntster (t @ c) 01:27, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Brown dwarf more likely because the frequency of ejected planets is unknown

The paper says "At this mass, WISE 0855−0714 could be either a brown dwarf or a gas giant planet that was ejected from its system. The former seems more likely given that the frequency of planetary-mass brown dwarfs is non-negligible while the frequency of ejected planets is unknown." which seems strange to say one possibility is more likely than the other because the likelihood of the other possibility is unknown. Astredita (talk) 01:38, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

What's the highest mass planet that has been ejected from a system

NASA's exoplanet catalog includes planets up to 30Mj. What's the highest mass planet that has been ejected from a system? How many brown dwarfs are actually brown-dwarf-mass rogue planets? Astredita (talk) 16:33, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Scientists generally use a cutoff of 13 Jupiter Masses not 30 to separate planetary mass objects from brown dwarfs. The ejection of planets, and whether Free Floating Planetary Mass Objects formed free floating or are ejected from planetary systems is poorly understood at the moment. Maybe in the future when we get good spectra of both types of objects, you could use C/O ratio or metallicity implied from the spectra do determine an object's formation mechanism.

Brown dwarfs are objects that are massive enough to burn deuterium but not massive enough to burn hydrogen. Objects like this are called Brown Dwarfs regardless if they formed within a disk or directly by collapse of gas in a nebula. Martin Cash (talk) 18:20, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

If a possibly or not planetary-mass (9-13 Mj) companion orbits its host star at 2000 AU then what is it?

Is GU Psc b a captured planetary-mass brown-dwarf now-a-planet, or is it a recaptured rogue-planet now-a-planet-again, or a scattered-planet, or a brown-dwarf-formed planet, or a planetary-mass brown dwarf that isn't actually orbiting the star at all, or a rogue planet or a brown dwarf or a scattered brown-dwarf-mass planet or a captured brown dwarf or a recaptured brown-dwarf-mass rogue-planet or a recaptured brown dwarf? GU Psc b is probably more massive than WISE 0855–0714 which the media are describing as a star, so does that mean that GU Psc b is a star, a planetary-mass star, or a captured star or recaptured rogue star or one member of a binary star system? If GU Psc b has satellites what would they be called? When there is a binary system of two planetary-mass brown dwarfs then are they both stars or is the lower-mass one a moon? Astredita (talk) 17:18, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Astredita, you are searching for hard rules where none exist. We've only been finding these things for the past few years, and simply don't know enough about them to draw concrete conclusions. We just don't, and will not for a long time, have answers to most of these things. — Huntster (t @ c) 01:13, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Don't forget to translate

To our scientist friends who have been editing the article. Please don't forget to include plain-English explanations along with the more technical descriptions. Remember, Misplaced Pages is a public use encyclopedia.

You can absolutely add technical language, but Misplaced Pages policy requires that any technical entries must then also be explained in plain non-technical English, wherever possible.

2602:306:BDA0:97A0:466D:57FF:FE90:AC45 (talk) 21:20, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

FWIW - atm "readability" of the WISE 0855–0714 article is *Excellent* - at 60 - based on the following => Readability of Misplaced Pages Articles (BEST? => Score of 60/"6th grade/11yo" level) - hope this helps in some way - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 21:57, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

No it really doesn't help.

This sentence is not understandable to the average reader--

 "As of 2003, the International Astronomical Union considers an object with a mass above the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium (currently calculated to be 13 MJ for objects of solar metallicity) to be a brown dwarf, whereas an object under that mass (and orbiting a star or stellar remnant) is considered a planet"

Nor this one--

Based on the name WISE J085510.83–071442.5, it is located in the constellation Hydra.

This too (in this case, the Wikilink for Parallax goes to another overly technical article). Just putting in a Wikilink does not automatically mean that the subject has been rendered understandable to the lay reader)--

It has the third-highest proper motion (8.1±0.1″ yr–1) and the fourth-largest parallax (0.454±0.045 mas) of any known star or brown dwarf, meaning it is the fourth closest extrasolar body to the Sun.

75.80.114.227 (talk) 02:57, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

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