What is a Brown Dwarf star in the simplest terms?

Question

I just heard about Nibiru "attacking" in the recent future. 2012 apparently. That's the year of my highschool graduation. What is Nibiru and is it really that dangerous? because I've heard it was simply a sister star.

Answer 1

Nibiru is a figment of someone's imagination.

December 21, 2012 is the start of a new b'ak'tun on the Mayan calendar, like Y2K without all the computer hoopla.  The superstitious always have panic attacks "significant calendar events", while disregarding that the calendar is a man-made construct and has no sway whatsoever on the universe.

Now, to your first question.  A brown dwarf is a body with a mass 10-80 times that of Jupiter, and glows in infrared due to either deuterium fusion or gravitational collapse, basically too big to be a mere planet, but not big enough to be a star.

Answer 2

a brown dwarf in the simplest terms is a failed star, a miscarriage if you will.

"while disregarding that the calendar is a man-made construct and has no sway whatsoever on the universe"

COMPLETELY irrelevant... these theories aren't constructed around a specific day on our man-made calander..... the date is just used to tell us WHEN something will happen... it's not happening BECAUSE a certain day of a certain month has came along....

(infact, this particular belief is based on the alignment of the sun, earth and the galactic equator....)

Answer 3

A brown dwarf can be considered a failed star. Think Jupiter only larger.

Nibiru is a hypothetical brown dwarf companion star to Sol (our star). There is no proof of its existence.  

All this hype about 2012 is, in a word, c**p. It is based on the fact that the ancient Mayans calendars end in the year 2012.

It is more apocalyptic hysteria. People are forever espousing that the world is going to end, yet it hasn't.

No one knows what is going to happen in the future to any real degree of certainty. So, stop worrying about 2012 and Nibiru and live your life.  

Answer 4

  It is about a 1 solar mass star whose fusion furnace has used up most of it's fuel and has shrunk to a minimum size and temperature with very little light emission