NASA's most powerful space telescope discovers 6 'rogue worlds'

By Necva Tastan Sevinc

ISTANBUL (AA) - Scientists have identified six "rogue worlds" using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in the Perseus Molecular Cloud, according to a report released on Wednesday.

These six "rogue worlds," which are celestial bodies not gravitationally bound to any star, were found in the NGC 1333 cloud, approximately 960 light-years from Earth.

The turbulent environment of NGC 1333, captured by JWST’s infrared cameras, enables the combination of gas and dust, leading to the formation of stars and other celestial bodies.

The six identified "rogue worlds" are larger than Jupiter.

Adam Langeveld, lead author of the study from Johns Hopkins University, explained, "We are probing the very limits of the star-forming process. If you have an object that resembles a young Jupiter, it raises the question of whether it could have become a star under the right conditions. This is crucial for understanding both star and planet formation."

Co-author Ray Jayawardhana, vice president and astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, noted, “We used Webb’s unprecedented sensitivity at infrared wavelengths to search for the faintest members of a young star cluster. This addresses a fundamental question in astronomy: How light can an object be and still form like a star?”

“It turns out the smallest free-floating objects that form like stars have masses similar to giant exoplanets orbiting nearby stars,” he added.

Jayawardhana highlighted that their observations suggest that planets can form independently of a central star, originating from the collapse of gas and dust clouds.

The study also identified one of the new "rogue worlds" with a mass five times that of Jupiter, approximately equivalent to 1,600 Earth masses. This celestial body has a dusty disk around it resembling a star-forming region, suggesting the potential formation of "mini planets."

Additionally, researchers detected newly formed stars, planets with 5-10 Jupiter masses, and a rare celestial object known as a "brown dwarf," along with another object close to the mass of a planet, within the NGC 1333 cloud.

"Brown dwarfs" are objects that are too massive to be classified as planets but not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion like stars.