About 40 of these pairs were identified by JWST, the largest and most powerful telescope in space, during its study of the Orion Nebula. The telescope is an international partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). ) These objects are too small to be stars, but also defy the usual definition of athe planet Because they do not orbit the parent star. Mysterious objects have baffled astronomers.
On microblogging site X, ESA posted on Tuesday: “New space pictures! The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has added detailed images of the Orion Nebula to our ESASky app. Expand this area with a variety of phenomena including protostars, brown dwarfs and free-floating planets!
The Orion Nebula is a star region 1,350 light-years away Earth, Orion is located in the belt of the Northern Hemisphere galaxy. It has been studied by astronomers for a long time, but scientists are also involved Web Telescope A review of the piece, released on Monday, said the new images were the best shots “so far”.
The discovery appears to confound current theories of star and planet formation, suggesting that Jupiter-sized objects could not have formed through the star-forming process within clouds of dust and gas found in a nebula.
JuMBOs are about a million years old — babies in astronomical terms — and have a hellish surface temperature of roughly 1,000 degrees Celsius. Without a host star, they cool quickly and briefly display temperatures in the habitable range before becoming incredibly cold. However, as gas giants, their surfaces do not contain liquid water, meaning they are unlikely to support life.
“There is something wrong with our understanding of planet formation, star formation – or both,” said European Space Agency scientist Samuel Pearson.
The ESA team has offered two possible source explanations for these massive objects. First, these objects grew from regions in the nebula where the density of matter was insufficient to form full-sized stars. A second possibility is that they are planets that formed around stars but were eventually “kicked off” due to gravitational interactions.
