Hard drives store data on discs coated with a metallic film divided into
tiny magnetic regions, each of which stores a single bit — the more regions you can squeeze on to a disc, the bigger the capacity.
What they found came as a surprise: As the object rotated, a
powerful magnetic region came into view, more powerful than the magnetic fields associated with sunspots that we observe on the sun.
But if this
active magnetic region is long - lasting and representative of its global magnetic field, LSR J1835 +3259 is way more «star - like» than we give brown dwarfs credit for.
On traditional hard drives,
the magnetic regions that store data are about 10 times as large as the smallest skyrmions.
Groups of these particles, called grains, form
the magnetic regions on the drive, with around 100 grains corresponding to one bit.
The spinning disc is covered with a thin magnetic film and a read - write head hovering above it which «senses» the direction of
the magnetic regions (or bits) on the disc.