Brown Dwarfs and Ballet with Johanna Vos

Brown dwarfs are often called failed stars, but today’s guest on the LIUniverse, astrophysicist Dr. Johanna Vos, prefers to think of them as overachieving planets. Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu discuss with Johanna why brown dwarfs are so cool (pun intended!), and how their formation is something of a cosmic-scale anticlimax.

Beginning with today’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, a pair of brown dwarfs orbiting each other more than a hundred times farther than the Earth is from the Sun, we’ll go into how astronomers study these objects from here on Earth and from our observatories in space such as the brand new James Webb Space Telescope. Along the way, we’ll learn how the astronomical community decides which of the sky’s numerous exciting objects get seen with these cutting-edge facilities.

In fact, that leads right into our first student question for this episode, in which Nevan asks what object our guest thinks the JWST should look at first. While Johanna answers with one of her favorite objects, in typical Chuck fashion we end up on the ice planet Hoth*. We also have a question from Aryeh who asks for some advice for current students interested in astronomy. (As always, if you want your questions answered, support the LIUniverse on Patreon!)

Next, Johanna explores some of the differences between her own experience with the education system in Ireland and Scotland and what she sees from the students she mentors in New York. We also get to hear about Johanna’s experience dancing ballet. She shares which ballets are her favorites to view and to perform, and what dance – and art more generally – has in common with Astronomy.

To keep up with our guest’s exciting astronomical research, you can follow @Johannamvos on Twitter, and don’t forget to subscribe to us here on YouTube so you can catch every episode as soon as it comes out!

*For those of you who don’t know, Hoth first appears in the Empire Strikes Back, aka Star Wars Episode V.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

- A stellar nursery in the Orion Nebula – Credit: Hubble Space Telescope, NASA/ESA

- Planet-forming disk around the star HL Tauri – Credit: ALMA, CC-BY 4.0

- Wise 0855 moving through the sky – Credit: WISE/Spitzer, NASA/JPL-Caltech/Penn State University

- The New Technology Telescope in Chile – Credit: ESO/B. Tafreshi (twanight.org), CC-BY 4.0