What’s uncommon is that none of the planet-sized bodies, all between five and 15 times Jupiter’s mass, orbit a star, as the Earth does to the sun.
New images from the James Webb telescope reveal a handful of peculiar planets. ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Scholz, K. Muzic, A. Langeveld, R. Jayawardhana
A Johns Hopkins University team is drawn to the potential that these were actually brown dwarfs, the astronomic term for failed stars.
“If you have an object that looks like a young Jupiter, is it possible that it could have become a star under the right conditions?” said lead study author Adam Langeveld.
It could be an important distinction that brown dwarfs cannot form from anything comparatively lighter — as it is, the discovery equated to only about 10% of NGC1333’s mass.
The James Webb telescope found planets that may have first been failed stars. AP A discovery by the James Webb Telescope, similar to this image, reveals interesting data on how far-away planets may have formed. ZUMAPRESS.com
“Our observations confirm that nature produces planetary mass objects in at least two different ways,” Jayawardhana said in a release . “From the contraction of a cloud of gas and dust, the way stars form, and in disks of gas and dust around young stars, as Jupiter in our own solar system did.”
It was observed to sport an orbital ring of dust similar to one that created a perimeter around our own solar system billions of years ago during its formation.
“Those tiny objects with masses comparable to giant planets may themselves be able to form their own planets,” added co-author Aleks Scholz.
“This might be a nursery of a miniature planetary system on a scale much smaller than our solar system.”
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