NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has spotted hundreds of lonely 'planets' that are floating through space without parent stars.
"Physics says you can’t even make objects that small."NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has spotted hundreds of lonely "planets" that are seemingly floating through empty space without being tethered to any star in particular. But many of them are not totally alone: instead, they're appearing in pairs.
The discovery of these Jupiter Mass Binary Objects , which showed up in a new survey of the Orion Nebula, has astronomers baffled, and could potentially force scientists to reevaluate our existing models of how planetary systems are formed. "My reactions ranged from: 'Whaaat?!?' to 'Are you sure?' to 'That's just so weird!' to 'How could binaries be ejected together?'" multidisciplinary scientist and JWST scientist Heidi Hammel, who was not on the survey team,Scientists have two possible explanations for the unusual phenomenon.
"We were looking for these very small objects and we find them," Mark McCaughrean, a senior adviser for science and exploration at the European Space Agency,. "We find them down as small as one Jupiter mass, even half a Jupiter mass, floating freely, not attached to a star." "Physics says you can’t even make objects that small," he added. "We wanted to see, can we break physics? And I think we have, which is good."They may have some hallmark characteristics of planets, like a hot atmosphere with steam and methane in it, but experts say they're technically not planets.
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