NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has contributed to the discovery of the youngest brown dwarf ever observed — a finding that, if confirmed, may solve an astronomical mystery about how these cosmic misfits are formed.

Brown dwarfs are misfits because they fall somewhere between planets and stars in terms of their temperature and mass. They are cooler and more lightweight than stars and more massive (and normally warmer) than planets. This has generated a debate among astronomers: Do brown dwarfs form like planets or like stars?

Brown dwarfs are born of the same dense, dusty clouds that spawn stars and planets. But while they may share the same galactic nursery, brown dwarfs are often called “failed” stars because they lack the mass of their hotter, brighter stellar siblings. Without that mass, the gas at their core does not get hot enough to trigger the nuclear fusion that burns hydrogen — the main component of these molecular clouds — into helium. Unable to ignite as stars, brown dwarfs end up as cooler, less luminous objects that are more difficult to detect — a challenge that was overcome in this case by Spitzer’s heat-sensitive infrared vision.

To complicate matters, young brown dwarfs evolve rapidly, making it difficult to catch them when they are first born. The first brown dwarf was discovered in 1995 and, while hundreds have been found since, astronomers had not been able to unambiguously find them in their earliest stages of formation until now. In this study, an international team of astronomers found a so-called “proto brown dwarf” while it was still hidden in its natal star-forming region. Guided by Spitzer data collected in 2005, they focused their search in the dark cloud Barnard 213, a region of the Taurus-Auriga complex well known to astronomers as a hunting ground for young objects.

“We decided to go several steps back in the process when (brown dwarfs) are really hidden,” said David Barrado of the Centro de Astrobiología in Madrid, Spain, lead author of the paper on the discovery in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal. “During this step they would have an (opaque) envelope, a cocoon, and they would be easier to identify due to their strong infrared excesses. We have used this property to identify them. This is where Spitzer plays an important role because Spitzer can have a look inside these clouds. Without it this wouldn’t have been possible.”

Spitzer’s longer-wavelength infrared camera penetrated the dusty natal cloud to observe a baby brown dwarf named SSTB213 J041757. The data, confirmed with near-infrared imaging from Calar Alto Observatory in Spain, revealed not one but two of what would potentially prove to be the faintest and coolest brown dwarfs ever observed.

Barrado and his team embarked on an international quest for more information about the two objects. Their overarching scientific objective was to observe and characterize the presence of this dusty envelope — proof of the celestial womb of sorts that would indicate that these brown dwarfs were, in fact, in their earliest evolutionary stages.

The twins were observed from around the globe, and their properties were measured and analyzed using a host of powerful astronomical tools. One of the astronomers’ stops was the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory in Hawaii, which captured the presence of the envelope around the young objects. That information, coupled with what they had from Spitzer, enabled the astronomers to build a spectral energy distribution — a diagram that shows the amount of energy that is emitted by the objects in each wavelength.

From Hawaii, the astronomers made additional stops at observatories in Spain (Calar Alto Observatory), Chile (Very Large Telescopes) and New Mexico (Very Large Array). They also pulled decade-old data from the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre archives that allowed them to comparatively measure how the two objects were moving in the sky. After more than a year of observations, they drew their conclusions.

“We were able to estimate that these two objects are the faintest and coolest discovered so far,” Barrado said. Barrado said the findings potentially solve the mystery about whether brown dwarfs form more like stars or planets. The answer? They form like low-mass stars. This theory is bolstered because the change in brightness of the objects at various wavelengths matches that of other very young, low-mass stars.

While further study will confirm whether these two celestial objects are in fact proto brown dwarfs, they are the best candidates so far, Barrado said. He said the journey to their discovery, while difficult, was fun. “It is a story that has been unfolding piece by piece. Sometimes nature takes its time to give up its secrets.”

These observations were made before Spitzer ran out of its liquid coolant in May 2009, beginning its “warm” mission.

The paper’s other authors are M. Morales-Calderon, Centro de Astrobiología and Spitzer Science Center; A. Palau and A. Bayo, Centro de Astrobiología; I. de Gregorio-Monsalvo, European Southern Observatory; C. Eiroa, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; N. Huelamo, Centro de Astrobiología; H. Bouy, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and European Space Agency; O. Morata, Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics and National Taiwan Normal University; and L. Schmidtobreick, European Southern Observatory.

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Earth’s last great icy citadel, the East Antarctica Ice Sheet, is beginning to crumble.

Antarctica’s western ice sheet has been under siege from global warming for some time, with billions of tons of ice melting into the ocean each year and contributing to sea level rise. By contrast, the east has appeared to hold out, its mass staying stable.

Now a new set of satellite measurements indicate the East may have begun to succumb to warmer temperatures, losing as much as 57 billion tons of ice a year since 2006. There is still a lot of uncertainty in the readings, but if the readings hold up under scrutiny, it would mark an important change in the world’s largest ice sheet.

“This could be the beginning of a trend, but whether or not it’s a trend or just variability from year to year, we’re not sure,” Jianli Chen of the University of Texas at Austin said. Chen led a team of researchers on the study, which appeared yesterday in Nature Geoscience.

The team’s results in western Antarctica match up well with previous studies, which have found that the region is shedding around 196 billion tons of ice each year.

That’s a tiny fraction of the total amount of ice on the continent, which holds enough frozen water to raise sea level a staggering 70 meters (230 feet) if it were to melt. Still, it’s enough to cause concern — much of the western ice sheet lies below sea level, and though air temperatures have remained well below freezing, warmer ocean waters have been eating away at its edges.

The eastern glaciers have comparatively little direct contact with ocean waters, which may explain why they have remained stable in recent years, even growing by some measurements.

But Chen and his team’s work, a profile of changes in ice quantity from 2002 through early 2009, suggests the Eastern glaciers began shedding ice in the Wilkes Land area of East Antarctica in 2006. Ice loss also appears to have accelerated in much of Western Antarctica, perhaps indicating a warming trend since then. The team based their studies on data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite.

Not all scientists are convinced, however. Jay Zwally of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center noted that the team’s findings also show a thickening of ice in another part of eastern Antarctica, which he thinks is evidence that snowfall has merely shifted away from Wilkes Land in recent years.

“You can have a change in precipitation of tens of centimeter during the time period they’re looking at,” he said. “I don’t think what they’re seeing is related to changes in ice dynamics. Melt isn’t driving this.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am truely honoured by the invitation to address such a distinguished gathering and to be among many old friends and well wishers of India in this season of Thanksgiving.

I am very grateful to each one of you for being present to listen to me this evening. Many of you have spent long years in the study of India. You have provided intellectual sustenance to the idea of a strong India-US partnership and what it means for our two democracies and the world at large.

Ladies and Gentlemen: I see the future of the India-US partnership with confidence and optimism. There is a growing convergence in our national interests, both within the bilateral framework and on regional and global issues. The changes in the global economic and political structures and the growing interdependence among nations today offer us a unique opportunity to look beyond our bilateral engagement to establish a strategic partnership of global dimensions. If we are to effectively tackle the multiple challenges that confront the world, India and the United States, as two leading democracies, must work together.

The immediate challenge before us is to bring the world to full recovery from the global economic and financial crisis. I have no doubt that the creative and entrepreneurial genius of the American people will ensure that the US economy emerges from this crisis stronger and well placed to contribute to global economic growth. India is playing its own part in the process of global recovery. Despite the slowdown, our economy grew by 6.7% last year and is expected to grow by 6.5% in the current fiscal year.

India and the United States have strong compulsions to work towards an open and liberal regime for transfers of goods, services, investments and technology. This will stimulate recovery in the global economy, create jobs and spur growth in our own economies. Ladies and Gentlemen: Our generation has an opportunity given to few, to remake a new global equilibrium after the irreversible changes brought about by the rapid geopolitical and economic shifts of the recent past. Nowhere are the changes more visible than in Asia. India and the United States can work together with other countries in the region to create an open and inclusive regional architecture in the Asia-Pacific region. The India-US partnership can contribute to an orderly transition to the new order and be an important factor for global peace and stability.

Both India and the United States draw strength from our common values of respect for cultural diversity, democracy, freedom of expression and the rule of law. Our two nations have been shaped by the thoughts and ideals of two apostles of peace of the 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. We should advance these ideals as fundamental rights of all human beings. We have made some progress in moving towards a more representative mechanism to manage global economic and financial issues. The same cannot be said about governance of the political and security order. There is a need to reform the United Nations and its Security Council.

Ladies and Gentlemen: In my interactions with President Obama, I have found shared thinking on the moral imperative of putting the poor at the forefront of the global agenda. In Africa, Asia and elsewhere, they must have access to education and give them bankable skills, to nutrition and to health-care. The India-US partnership can promote global cooperation in dealing with issues that the world has to face together, whether it is hunger, global security and terrorism, nuclear disarmament, climate change or the spread of pandemics.

Ladies and Gentlemen, History has taught us that peace, security and prosperity are indivisible. That is why the evolution of Afghanistan as a stable and moderate nation state is so vital for the region and the world. The road to peace in Afghanistan will be long and hard. But, given the high stakes involved, the commitment of the international community must be sustained by firm resolve and unity of purpose. India has enduring civilizational links with Afghanistan.

We do not see Afghanistan as a theatre of influence. Our interest is in building a region of peace and stability. India will continue to assist Afghanistan in building its institutions and its human resources. Democracy in an ancient land like Afghanistan will take time to take root and to come to terms with the country’s history and tribal traditions. It is vitally important that all major regional and international players put their weight behind the government of Afghanistan. This is the only way Afghanistan can meet the daunting challenges it faces.

Ladies and Gentlemen: My government has invested heavily over the past few years in normalizing relations with our neighbour Pakistan. We made considerable progress on the road to a durable and permanent settlement of all outstanding issues. I have said that we are ready to pick up the threads of the dialogue, including on issues related to Jammu & Kashmir. We seek a South Asia of peace, friendship and prosperity, where its borders will be energized by the flow of people, goods and ideas. For this to happen, Pakistan must make a break with the past, abjure terrorism and come to the table with good faith and sincerity. It is my solemn hope that India and Pakistan can together move forward to write a new chapter in the history of our sub-continent.

We are three days away from the first anniversary of the heinous and barbaric terrorist attacks on Mumbai. The trauma of that attack continues to haunt us. Terrorism poses an existential threat to the civilized world and must be defeated. We should not harbour any illusions that a selective approach to terrorism, tackling it in one place while ignoring it in others, will work or pay dividends.

Ladies and Gentlemen: We welcome the fact that President Obama has committed the United States to the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. India has been committed to this goal since our independence. We believe that India’s security will be enhanced, not diminished, by the complete elimination of nuclear weapons the world over. There is much that India and the United States can do together to reduce the global risks of nuclear proliferation, including by building a new global consensus on the way ahead. The negotiation of a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty in the Conference on Disarmament will be a significant contribution.

We welcome President Obama’s initiative to host a Summit on Nuclear Security in April next year. Our countries can play a vital role in strengthening global resolve to prevent terrorists from gaining access to materials and technologies related to weapons of mass destruction. Ladies and Gentlemen: The negotiations heading toward Copenhagen are proving more difficult than we would have liked. There is disagreement among industrialized countries and between industrialized and developing countries.

It is important for all countries to make every effort to contribute to a successful outcome at Copenhagen. India was a latecomer to industrialization and as such we have contributed very little to the accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. But, we are determined to be part of the solution to the problem. We are willing to work towards any solution that does not compromise the right of developing countries to develop and lift their populations out of poverty. We recognize that we have to act on climate change in our own interest, since we are among the countries most impacted by climate change. It is for this reason that we have adopted an ambitious National Action Plan on Climate Change.

We are committed to ambitious and time-bound outcomes that will increase the energy efficiency of our economy, the share of clean energy including nuclear power in our energy mix, and our forest cover. All this will require considerable resources. We have undertaken to do what we can with our own resources. We will do more if there is global support in terms of financial resources and technology transfer. Ladies and Gentlemen: India’s economic transition is gathering pace. It will be faster in the years ahead as we harness the expanding economic productivity of our young population.

The unshackling of our markets; the latent demand, particularly of our rural economy; and the fact that our domestic savings rate now is as high as 35% of our GDP all suggest that we can achieve a sustained growth of 9% per annum over the next couple of decades. This will create the resources to make our development process more inclusive as well as sustainable. The social agenda has come to dominate the domestic political discourse in our two countries.

This was the verdict of our general elections held in May 2009, and I believe it was also of yours. The time is opportune for us to substantially enhance our cooperation in the critical areas of education, health, energy, science and technology and agriculture. Collaboration between our software industries has powered the global knowledge economy. We can build and we must on this experience and look at new frontiers of cooperation.

American agricultural science and technology can help India usher in a second Green Revolution. India’s competitive advantages in the pharmaceutical and medical services industries can support healthcare reform in the United States. India has embarked on its largest education expansion program since independence. There are plans to set up more than 40 new universities and institutions. We would like to benefit from the great American university system, which attracts a large number of Indian students every year. We can cooperate in the development, production and deployment of green technologies.

In this context, we should fully harness our bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement to shape the nuclear renaissance in the energy industry. Ladies and Gentlemen: We deeply appreciate the cooperation that we have received from the United States in the area of counter-terrorism in the recent past. I am convinced that we can do much more together on a sustained basis to combat increasingly sophisticated terror networks, transnational criminal groups and cyber terrorism. Our defence and strategic dialogues have added important dimensions to our relatioship.

Maritime security, including countering piracy and protecting sea-lanes of communication in the Indian Ocean and beyond, is another important area where we should expand cooperation. Ladies and Gentlemen: The edifice of the India-US partnership is founded on many pillars. It is a relationship based on pragmatism and principle; and strengthened by shared values and common interests. Our ties draw heavily on the strength and vitality of the Indian and American people. The 2.7 million strong Indian American community has made good the enormous opportunities provided to them in their adopted home.

They are a powerful factor in drawing our two countries together. President Obama’s advocacy of an inclusive approach to problem solving and primacy to dialogue as an instrument of policy create many more opportunities for our two democracies to work together in realizing the vision of a shared destiny for all humankind. Collaboration and cooperation between our two countries will be indispensable for shaping a global society that is responsive to the needs and aspirations of the 21st century and where countries can pursue their legitimate interests in a secure and just environment.

Ladies and Gentlemen I thank you for listening to me Thank You.