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What it is : The Flame Nebula ( NGC 2024 ) star - forming neighborhood
Where it is:1,400 easy - long time forth , in the constellation Orion
This collage of images from the Flame Nebula shows a near-infrared view from the Hubble Space Telescope on the left, with infrared views from the James Webb Space Telescope in the insets.
When it was divvy up : March 10 , 2025
Why it ’s so special : What are the small adept ? A recondite dive into the asterisk - forming Flame Nebula by theJames Webb Space Telescope(JWST ) has revealed free - float , Jupiter - size objects that could help oneself answer that key interrogative in astronomy .
The free - floating objective are brown dwarfs , which straddle the descent between stars and planets . Brown midget are often called " fail hotshot " because they do n’t get dumb and hot enough to become stars and , alternatively , eventually cool to become dim , hard - to - see objects .
An uncropped view of the image.
However , on the dot how small a chocolate-brown dwarf can be is a mystery , largely because these object are impossible to study using received telescopes . But JWST is sensitive to infrared light , which it sees as high temperature . The scope sound looking for comparatively fond and bright young brown dwarfs in the Flame Nebula , whose obtuse detritus and gas leaven no couple for its infrared detectors .
Related:42 jaw - dropping James Webb Space Telescope images
It constitute loose - float target two to three times the muckle of Jupiter , though the telescope is equal to of incur object half the mass of the gas giant . That ’s little than scientists expected .
NASA’sHubble Space Telescopehas been hunt for brown dwarfs for decades . antecedently , Hubble identified potential candidates in a region of the Flame Nebula called the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex . Now , JWST has picked up the baton and completed what scientist telephone " a quantum leap " in understand brown dwarfs .
— Hubble hunts a stellar ' imposter ' hide out in the Great Bear
— The last horizon of the ' Great Comet of 2025 ' for half a million years
— James Webb telescope reveals orphic ' light sound reflection ' in the broken heart of Cassiopeia
" It ’s really difficult to do this work , look at brown midget down to even ten Jupiter masses , from the ground , specially in regions like this,“Matthew De Furio , an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin and lead author of a studypublishedthis hebdomad in The Astrophysical Journal Letters , said in astatement . " Having existing Hubble data over the last 30 years or so allowed us to know that this is a really useful adept - forming neighborhood to point . We necessitate to have Webb to be able to study this particular science topic . "
The researchers desire JWST ’s power to divide the light from an object into its component wavelength will facilitate them clear up the boundaries between a planet , a brown midget and a full - fledged principal .
For more high-minded space image , check out ourSpace Photo of the Week archives .
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