JuMBO, pairs of planets orbiting each other not bound to any stars

 The James Webb Space Telescope has played a role in revealing hidden aspects of the universe ever since it was created. Recently its exploration has led to a discovery within the Orion Nebula. Twin planet like entities that were previously unnoticed.

Taking a look at the Orion Nebula we find a dazzling combination of dust and gas making it one of the brightest nebulae visible in the night sky. Often referred to as the sword within the Orion constellation this nebula is located 1,300 light years away from Earth. Over time it has consistently presented astronomers with a plethora of bodies to study including planetary formation disks around young stars, brown dwarfs and other objects, with masses falling between planets and stars.

To capture images of the Orion Nebula scientists have utilized James Webbs near infrared sensitive camera called NIRCam. This advanced technology has allowed for observations using both long wavelengths of light resulting in unprecedented details and surprising discoveries.

During their research astronomers Samuel G. Pearson and Mark J. McCaughrean focused on studying the Trapezium cluster within the Orion Nebula based on shortwave images.

This group of stars serves as a ground for the birth of new stars, which are approximately 1 million years old and filled with thousands of young stars. In addition to the known stars scientists have also discovered dwarfs in this cluster. Brown dwarfs are celestial bodies that do not have enough mass to initiate nuclear fusion in their cores and become fully fledged stars. These brown dwarfs have than 7% of the mass of our Sun.

The Discovery of Jupiter Binary Objects (JuMBOs)

During further exploration for smaller celestial bodies astronomers made an extraordinary finding; pairs of planet like objects with masses ranging from 0.6 to 13 times that of Jupiter. This discovery challenges established astronomical theories that were previously believed to be true. These paired objects have been named Jupiter Binary Objects or JuMBOs.

Characteristics of JuMBOs

A total of 40 pairs and two triple systems of JuMBOs have been detected so far all orbiting each other on wide ranging paths. Despite being paired these objects are typically separated by a distance to around 200 times the distance between Earth and the Sun also known as astronomical units (AU). It takes from 20,000 to 80,000 years for these objects to complete an orbit around each other.

In this image captured by Webbs technology five JuMBOs can be seen clearly providing intricate details about the Trapezium cluster, within the Orion Nebula.

The temperature of these objects ranges from 537 degrees Celsius to 1,260 degrees Celsius as explained by Pearson. These gas based entities are relatively young in terms being approximately 1 million years old. To put it into perspective our solar system is 4.57 billion years old.

The Ongoing Investigations on JuMBOs

McCaughrean and Pearson have written two research papers based on their observations in the Orion Nebula using the Webb telescope. These studies are currently going through the review process for publication, in journals and preliminary findings can be accessed on a preprint website called arXiv. The discovery of JuMBOs has raised questions that require further exploration, including their origin.

Explaining JuMBOs

Stars form from giant clouds of gas and dust that collapse under gravitational forces. This process continues as other disks of gas and dust swirl around the forming stars, giving rise to planets. But no existing theory explains how JuMBOs formed, or why they are present in the Orion Nebula, McCaughrean said.

For example, some might consider JuMBOs to be rogue planets, or objects of planetary mass that travel freely through space without orbiting any stars. Rogue planets, however, are formed by condensing from a proteplanetary cloud a orbiting a star before being ejected from their system and becoming rogue planets, and it is quite difficult for astronomers to explain how pairs of planets were ejected at the same time while remaining gravitationally connected to each other.

This Webb image shows the entire survey of the inner Orion Nebula and the Trapezium Cluster, captured in long wavelengths of light.

"Astronomers have been working on theories and models of star and planet formation for decades, but none of them ever predicted that we would find pairs of super low-mass objects floating alone in space-and we're seeing a lot of them," Pearson explains. "The main thing we learn from this is that there is something fundamentally wrong with our understanding of planet formation, star formation or both."

The Orion Nebula is one of astronomers' favorite observing targets, and the larger and more sophisticated telescopes become, the more objects are revealed within the nebula.

"Even though the objects we are observing are really faint, they are brighter in the infrared, so that's where we can detect them," Pearson said. "JWST is the most powerful infrared telescope ever built, and these observations simply would not be possible with any other telescope."

Observations of the nebula planned for early 2024 could provide more information about the atmospheric composition of JuMBO, Pearson said. Researchers also want to discover more details about these objects, including precise measurements of their masses.

Meanwhile, other research focused on different star-forming regions could reveal whether JuMBOs are also found elsewhere besides in the Orion Nebula.