A team of astronomers spotted an aurora in a brown dwarf 20 light years away, making it the first time one has been observed outside the solar system.
According to The Los Angeles Times, authors of a study published in the journal Nature stated the presence of an aurora in an exoplanet adds another dimension to the search for potentially habitable worlds.
"Brown dwarfs span the gap between stars and planets and these results are yet more evidence that we need to think of brown dwarfs as beefed-up planets, rather than 'failed stars,'" study co-author Stuart Littlefair, of the University of Sheffield's Department of Physics and Astronomy, said in a press release. "We already know that brown dwarfs have cloudy atmospheres - like planets - although the clouds in brown dwarfs are made of minerals that form rocks on Earth now we know brown dwarfs host powerful auroras too.
"Sometimes the best thing about a scientific result is simply the thrill of discovering something exciting and cool. The northern lights on Earth are one of the most spectacular and beautiful things you can see."
But the discovery is more than just a cool sight to see, or another first for a spatial body outside the solar system.
"All the magnetic activity we see on this object can be explained by powerful auroras," study lead author Gregg Hallinan, of the California Institute of Technology, said in another press release. "This indicates that auroral activity replaces solar-like coronal activity on brown dwarfs and smaller objects."
