Im guessing it only occurs when it is in a cloud or trail of charged particles. or perhaps there is a local (climatic?) cycle that sends charged particles to the poles.
Comment on A rogue object so strange, scientists aren’t sure what to call it.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
So, my understanding of auroras is, the planet’s magnetic field draws particles emitted by the sun toward the poles, and as those particles interact with the atmosphere they glow. So without a star and thus without solar wind, where do the aurora come from?
crazycraw@crazypeople.online 1 day ago
KingGimpicus@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
Kind of, but not really.
Auroras dont necessarily need a stars radiation. Any old radiation will do, so long as there are charged particles floating around. Jupiter, for example, has gigantic continuous aurora around the magnetic poles. If auroras only came from the sun, and the earth is much closer to the sun than Jupiter, wouldn’t earth have a bigger aurora than Jupiter?
No, obviously. The size of the aurora depends on the size of the magnetic field interacting with charged particles and the number of those charged particles.
In the case of supermassive planets like Jupiter and this rogue planet, they produce way more of their own radiation than they recieve from the sun or space. This rogue “planet” in particular is so massive that it could actually fuse deuterium down in the core just with the pressures and temperatures of gravity crushing all that matter down. If you pumped enough hydrogen in there to quadruple the mass, it would probably ignite into a star quite comparable to our sun.
For that reason, it’s better to think of this as more of a baby star that didn’t quite eat enough wheaties than a planet in the traditional sense we think of here in our solar system.
With the crazy physics that come with suns and near dwarfs with similar mass, it’s no surprise that it generates a titanic magnetic field, and as a bonus, it produces its own radiation. It creates all the necessary ingredients it needs to make it’s own spectacular auroras with no actual outside interaction.
Tl;dr it makes it’s own aurora
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The theory seems to be captured radiation fields. Earth even has one. A stray planet and its halo of interstellar objects might have a very large and complex radiation belt system.
m4xie@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Just what I was wondering.
Gust@piefed.social 1 day ago
I mean, it has a magnetic field 6 or 7 orders of magnitude higher than ours. Id guess that extra strength allows it to pull particles from much further away and possibly from sources much more reticent to give up their particles than solar wind
deranger@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Both the magnetic field strength and charged particle flux fall off proportional to the square of the distance from the planet / star respectively, so I doubt it gets much of anything even with a strong magnetic field unless it’s also near a star.
I’d also point out that the particles aren’t really attracted by the earths magnetic field, we’re just in the pathway, and the magnetic field funnels them to the poles. It’s more guidance than attraction.
merc@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
If the rogue planet is truly all alone in space, you’re definitely right. 4 million times is a lot, but space is really, really big, and solar radiation falls off with 1/r^2.
Let’s assume the auroras are proportional to the size of the magnetic field. That’s probably not true, it’s probably actually proportional to the square root of the magnetic field because field strengths fall off with 1/r^2, but let’s give it the best possible chance of having huge auroras. That would mean that a planet with 4x the magnetic field of Earth would have the same Aurora brightness at 2x the distance. So, something with 4 million times the magnetic field would have the same brightness at sqrt(4,000,000) the earth-to-sun distance, or 2000 the distance. If it were in our solar system, or even just near our solar system, it would be bright. But, space is big.
Since the earth is about 500 light-seconds from the sun, 2000 earth-distances is about 1 million light seconds, or about 11.5 days. By comparison, the closest star to Sol is Proxima Centauri at 4 light years. So, these Auroras would only be earth-like if the rogue planet were very close to some star. It wouldn’t have to necessarily be in orbit of that star, but it would have to be pretty close. If it were out in the space between the stars, there’s just nothing there for the magnetic field to interact with.
Tinidril@midwest.social 12 hours ago
But there are an estimated 100-400 billion stars in the Milky Way, some of which are hundreds of solar masses, not to mention the Accretion disks of black holes all kicking out radiation. That’s gotta add up to something, even with the inverse-square law fall off. The galactic core has unfathomable levels of radiation and puts out its own galactic wind, and some stars have observable bow shocks with it.
Gust@piefed.social 1 day ago
I dont think you’re quite understanding how big 6 orders of magnitude is. 4000000/r2 still falls off way slower than 1/r2.
Also the funnel diagram of the earth’s magnetic field you’re referring to is a near field effect. In the far field regime the only field components that stay strong enough to be relevant are those parallel to the axis of the dipole; a dipole is functionally identical to a bar magnet if you’re measuring it from far enough away. If my understanding of solar wind is correct and the aurora refers to an interaction that occurs between the earth’s magnetic field and particles near the sun, we’re definitely in the far field regime
deranger@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I don’t think you’re quite understanding the distances involved in what I’m getting at. The particle flux is minuscule, and it’s not the magnetic field that’s attracting particles. It’s only guiding the particles that were already headed towards the planet.
This planet would have great aurorae if it were near a star, but it’s not, so the magnetic field strength is kind of a moot point.
baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I see cheap MRIs