Cold Brown Dwarf Stars

[SSWarlock]

Thanks to the 2300AD mailing list, I received a link to an interesting potential plot device..a "star" cooler than the human body. At least it's interesting to me. It can be found in this story on NASA's website showcase.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-263&cid=release_2010-263&msource=11263&tr=y&auid=9364625

"At terrestrial temperatures matter has complex properties which are likely to prove most difficult to unravel; but it is reasonable to hope that in the not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star."
-- Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

Yeah, right. I'm not holding my breath.

Jupiter also has areas in its atmo which are cooler as well.
http://www.universetoday.com/15097/temperature-of-jupiter/

Just thought I'd share. Makes me wonder what kind of life could exist in these kind of dwarf stars.

 

[GypsyComet]

The increasingly common incidence of Brown Dwarf stars is going to make 2300AD increasingly hard to contain close to Terra unless something else is used to limit travel distances.

Just thought I'd share. Makes me wonder what kind of life could exist in these kind of dwarf stars.

That's pretty c... ah, neat.

Life is less likely since it may well take longer to evolve than the star is going to be around. If you take a more panspermia approach to life, then something might well fall in and start developing.

Obviously, things that either float in the stellar atmosphere or which can "fly" with wings of some sort are necessary, and the habitable zone is going to be a knife's edge between atmosphere to thin to fly in and solar soup too hot to support organic molecules.

Hmm. Traveller already has a couple examples of silicate life...

 

[DFW]

I read some published research earlier this year that indicates that the missing "dark matter" may be these stars. LOTS of them out there. I think it pointed to data that they are by far, the most abundant type...

 

[GypsyComet]

Which leads to the other Traveller questions: Can you get fuel from one? Some but not others? Does it take special equipment or can a normal ship handle it with scoops?

And yes, empty hex misjumps are still going to be a death sentence most of the time. These may be common, but still light years apart...

 

[DFW]

And yes, empty hex misjumps are still going to be a death sentence most of the time. These may be common, but still light years apart...

Good reason for ELB's and nuke batteries... 8)

 

[SSWarlock]

Which leads to the other Traveller questions: Can you get fuel from one? Some but not others? Does it take special equipment or can a normal ship handle it with scoops?

I don't see why not (yet).

It seems to me successful wilderness refueling depends on the speed of the "atmosphere" currents as well as the combo of temperature and pressure. In fact, wouldn't it be relatively safer to scoop from a Y-class since it wouldn't be funneling a local star's solar radiation into its poles and orbits with its magnetic field?