The Orion Nebula is full of impossible riddles that come in pairs

We have discovered a lot in this universe. Planets that orbit stars at right angles. Forbidden worlds that have cheated death. Space explosions that defy explanation.

Yet the cosmos continues to surprise us.

The latest spectacle, observed by the James Webb Space Telescope, is an agglomeration of nearly 150 free-floating objects amid the Orion Nebula, not far in mass from Jupiter. Dozens of these worlds even revolve around each other. The scientists who discovered them call them Jupiter Mass Binary Objects, or JuMBOs, and the reason for their appearance is a complete mystery.

“There is something wrong with our understanding of planet formation, star formation – or both,” said Samuel Pearson, a scientist at the European Space Agency who worked on the observations shared on Monday, which have not yet been peer-reviewed. “They shouldn’t exist.”

The Orion Nebula is a star-forming region 1,350 light-years from Earth, located in the belt of the constellation Orion in the Northern Hemisphere. It has long been studied by astronomers, but the scientists involved in the new Webb telescope study of the area, also released Mondaysaying the new images are “by far” the best renderings yet.

“We have better resolution than Hubble, but now in the infrared,” said Mark McCaughrean, senior adviser for science and research at the ESA. He said the latest observations revealed masses of star formation and young planetary systems in a way never seen before.

Stars in our universe are formed when giant clouds of dust and gas gradually merge under the influence of gravity. Eventually, areas of a cloud become so dense that they compress hydrogen atoms and initiate nuclear fusion, creating the core of a star. In less dense areas, a smaller version of fusion – deuterium fusion – can occur in smaller objects. These are called brown dwarfs, or sometimes ‘failed stars’.

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

If they were alone in the room they would be easier to explain. But their appearance in pairs, 42 of which are observed by the Webb telescope in the Orion Nebula, is astonishing. According to existing scientific models, it should not be possible to form individual objects this small directly from dust and gas clouds, let alone in pairs, said Dr. Pearson. Even if they were ejected planets—forcibly kicked out of young stars due to gravity—it’s also unclear why there would be so many verses.

“It’s like kicking a cup of tea across the room and all the tea ends up in the teacup,” said Dr. Pearson. “And then do that 42 times.”

The discovery is “completely unexpected,” said Matthew Bate, professor of theoretical astrophysics at the University of Exeter in England. Lots of stars, maybe even All stars, including our sun, are born in pairs. But as binary objects decrease in mass, they become less common because their weaker gravity makes them more easily torn apart. Still, the existence of JuMBOs “implies that we may be missing something about how these very low-mass objects form,” said Dr. Bate.

Dr. Pearson hopes to get to the bottom of the problem by using the Webb telescope to distinguish the light from the objects, revealing what their gaseous atmospheres are made of and perhaps how they are formed. Currently, he said, all he can deduce is evidence that it has methane and water on it.

Searching for JuMBOs in other star-forming regions can also help.

“Orion is really huge and very compact,” said Dr. Pearson. “Do we see the same thing happening in a sparse area? That could give us an idea of ​​what formation mechanism might be taking place.”

Until that mystery is solved, people can marvel at the Webb Telescope’s valuable new perspective on the Orion Nebula.

“When I was a young student and we were just starting to use electronic sensors on telescopes, we often waited with great anticipation for each ‘YAMOO’ – Yet Another Map Of Orion – because of the remarkable and surprising details each new detector revealed,” said Heidi Hammel, a NASA interdisciplinary scientist for the telescope and vice president for science at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy.

The Webb telescope, she said, has just been “delivered in spectacular fashion on its YAMOO.”