The Webb telescope captured the smallest “loser star”. PHOTO
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The James Webb Space Telescope captured a star – a brown dwarf that “travels alone through space.”
The space object is the smallest currently known, according to Space.com.
The star was discovered in the cluster IC 348, which is located at a distance of approximately 1000 light years from Earth.
The mass of the object is three times greater than the mass of Jupiter, astronomers note.
| Three brown dwarfs in the cluster IC 348, photographed by the James Webb Telescope. Photo: NASA |
A brown dwarf is not a planet. According to scientists, its brown color indicates that it is less white dwarf stars, but more dark planets that do not emit light.
After the discovery of the astronomical object, scientists wondered about its origin, since a gas cloud in a star cluster, which has weak gravity, could not have created it.
At the same time, a brown dwarf could not have formed in the same way as a planet, that is, from a protoplanetary disk around its star, scientists note.
Therefore, the new image from the Webb telescope will help astronomers better understand the differences between planets and stars.
Brown dwarfs are called “failure stars” because they are born from an accumulation of gas and dust in a cosmic cloud, which collapses under the influence of gravity.
After that, the cosmic body begins to grow until its mass becomes sufficient for the pressure and heat in the core to ignite and start the fusion of hydrogen.
For this, its mass must exceed the mass of Jupiter – the largest planet of the Solar System – at least 80-85 times.
The mass of the star that entered the Webb lens is three to four times that of Jupiter.
We previously reported that the Hubble telescope captured a globular cluster in the “satellite” of the Milky Way.
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