News Brief
Jupiter-Sized 'Planets' Found Floating in Space: James Webb Space Telescope Discovers Mysterious Objects, Puzzling Astronomers
James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently made a fascinating discovery by spotting Jupiter-sized objects floating freely in space, without any connection to stars.
These objects have been called "Jupiter Mass Binary Objects" or "JuMBOs".
During a survey of the Orion Nebula, the JWST found about 40 pairs of these JuMBOs.
What makes these JuMBOs intriguing is that they are too small to be stars and don't fit the typical definition of planets since they are not orbiting around a parent star. Astronomers are currently puzzled by these mysterious objects.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has proposed two possible explanations.
One theory suggests that these massive objects may have formed in regions of the nebula where there wasn't enough material to create full-fledged stars.
The other possibility is that they could be planets that initially formed around stars but were later ejected due to gravitational interactions.
Both ideas could provide insights into the origin and nature of these enigmatic JuMBOs.
The leading hypothesis right now is the ejection theory, which suggests that these objects couldn't have formed on their own, considering gas physics.
However, we do know that individual planets can get expelled from star systems. The challenge is understanding how pairs of these objects could be ejected together, and that is a question without a clear answer at the moment.
Dr Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, explains that planet ejection is happening in the Orion Nebula, which is a region where stars are being born.
This suggests that our current understanding of how planets form and evolve might not be complete. Astronomers admit that there's still much to discover in the field of astrophysics.
The James Webb Space Telescope, launched in 2021 and activated for data collection in 2022, has significantly advanced the knowledge of the early universe.
It has provided stunning images of the cosmos and has identified the earliest-known galaxies and black holes, offering a wealth of unprecedented data.
The Webb telescope's capabilities are about 100 times greater than those of the Hubble telescope, making it a game-changer in the exploration of the universe.
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