Sunday, October 22, 2023

Something new in something old

 










The James Webb Space Telescope took a look at the famous Orion Nebula, the middle of the three bright objects (the other two being stars) in the "sword" of constellation Orion.  It is a classic observational target, and numerous telescopes have looked at it.

But JWST found something new;  JuMBOs, Jupiter Mass Binary Objects

The Orion Nebula Is Full of Impossible Enigmas That Come in Pairs

"JuMBOs appear to be a smaller class of gaseous object. While brown dwarfs can grow to about 13 times the mass of Jupiter, the new objects can get as small as about half the planet’s mass, with temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. They are separated by about 200 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, orbiting each other on paths that take more than 20,000 years to complete.

Were they alone in space, they might be easier to explain. But their appearance in pairs, 42 of which are seen by the Webb telescope in the Orion Nebula, is baffling. According to existing scientific models, it should not be possible to form single objects so small directly from clouds of dust and gas, let alone in pairs, Dr. Pearson said. Even if they were ejected planets — violently kicked from young stars because of gravitational forces — it is similarly unclear why there would be so many couplets."



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