Brown dwarfs detected outside the Milky Way for the first time
Imagine gazing into the endless cosmos and discovering a hidden population of brown dwarfs deep within a distant star cluster named NGC 602. Located in the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way approximately 200,000 light-years from Earth, the brown dwarf cluster is unlike anything observed locally. Its environment mirrors the early universe with limited elements heavier than hydrogen and helium and dominated by dark clouds of dense dust. This unique setup coupled with a richness in ionized gas signals ongoing star formation. Searching for young brown dwarfs An international team of astronomers embarked on...
Is the universe still making new galaxies?
We think of galaxies as ancient. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, formed 13.6 billion years ago, and the James Webb Space Telescope has allowed us to peer back to some of the first galaxies in the early universe. But are galaxies still being born today?