You got me. Had to whatever the thought equivalent of double take is.
I just saw that series recently. What a wonderful show.
It really is a wonderful show. I watched it again recently because it’s that time of year, so this was on my mind. 😁
Jupiter and Saturn are brown dwarves, and fit many definitions of “star”.
They are both large enough to have developed a hydrogen plasma core furnace that dissolves the rock and ice that was once their core. They are more than just a hydrogen atmosphere, down to the core they’re a big ball of plasma undergoing all of the same physics as stellar tissue, except the pressure at the center isn’t enough to ignite fusion.
Uranus and Neptune, meanwhile, are likely too small for this, and maintain a fluid ice layer and rocky core beneath their hydrogen envelopes. There is not enough hydrogen for it to take over these worlds. Therefore, they are planets, not brown dwarf stars.
Jupiter and Saturn, however, have grown large enough for the hydrogen to have turned to plasma and dissolved and supplanted their cores with a plasma furnace.
The solar system has three stars. We are not too early to explore other star systems. We know of many planets around Jupiter and Saturn. The extraterrestrial planet with most earth-like atmosphere and surface geology that we know of is Titan, and it’s in our neighboring (sub) star system. Huygens and Juice and Europa Clipper and Dragonfly are humanity’s first missions to planets around other stars.
Jupiter and Saturn are not brown dwarves.
https://www.astronomy.com/science/ask-astro-why-is-jupiter-not-a-star-or-a-brown-dwarf/
dated July 1997 issue of the magazine
Here they are on Wikipedia’s list of Y-class brown dwarves.
Jupiter and Saturn are in fact brown dwarves.
Stellar classes are OBAFGKMLTY, from most to least massive.
Did you even read that page you linked to? Right at the top, it says:
They are a mix of brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects.
I love this because even though I read the words, I interpreted it to mean something else for a second. (atoms and galaxy) Be careful when you read things and don’t assume you know something.
Mmm… Yeah!
Is the joke that there is only one star in our solar system? The sun?
yes, … and only 2 hydrogen atoms in a molecule of water (H2O)
I was sure of the 2 H atoms but wasn’t sure if the sun was the only star. Thanks for the clarification.
This joke doesn’t work on tatooine
Made me think for a second.
It’s true
I don’t trust the liberal science agenda so I did my own research. Using some back-of-the-napkin math and my telescope, I’m now blind from looking at the sun through a telescope. This is being transcribed by my trad wife. My results:
2 > 1
This one checks out, folks.
You must be a terrorist because that’s MUSLIM MATH! Those are not Christian numbers and feel it necessary to report this comment to the FBI, the Federal Biblical Investigators.
Al-Gebra
How’s this instead: II > I
Thank you for your service.
What, you don’t believe in the Nemesis hypothesis?
Because that would bring it up to… hang on, let me get my calculator…
Two stars in the solar system.
Fascinating proposal, professor. Thankfully I can adjust my equations quite easily:
2 ≥ 2
Curses, foiled again!
There is not a single thing about this comment chain that doesn’t bring me joy.
Oh fuck… It’s so stupid it’s smart.
Second time i see this, still funny :)