Neither Stars nor Planets, JuMBOs are actually Protostars

In major celestial breakthrough, scientists have claimed solving the mystery of JuMBOs - Jupiter-mass binary objects, the peculiar objects first discovered in 2023 by the James Webb Space (JWS) Telescope

[Orion Nebula. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope - ESA]

In major celestial breakthrough, scientists have claimed solving the mystery of JuMBOs - Jupiter-mass binary objects, the peculiar objects first discovered in 2023 by the James Webb Space (JWS) Telescope.

Back in scientists observed 42 pairs of these free-floating planetary-mass objects in the Orion Nebula Cluster. These pairs, untethered to a parent star yet bound together, defied conventional formation theories for both stars and planets.

The JWS Telescope had spotted 42 pairs of mysterious Jupiter-sized Objects lurking about the Orion Nebula.

These objects, untethered to a parent star yet bound together, defied conventional formation theories for both stars and planets.

A team of researchers led by Richard Parker of the University of Sheffield, alongside undergraduate Jessica Diamond, revisited an older theory to explain their formation and found that JuMBOs are actually Stellar cores also known as protostars.

These Stellar cores have been violently “unwrapped” by massive, powerful stars similar to kids excitedly unwrapping presents on Christmas Day, reported Space.com.

Old idea helped the researchers

The researchers discovered this by revisiting an old idea to explain the new phenomenon. The theory revolves around "photo erosion," a process during which massive and violent stars - O-type or B-type stellar objects, blast other stars with high-energy radiation to strip away their outer layers. This idea fits because the star-forming Orion nebula is replete with hot and massive OB stars.

"We are using quite an old idea - that radiation from massive stars is so strong it erodes the gas 'core' that eventually forms a star," Parker told Space.com.

"The radiation removes some of the material from the core, reducing its mass, but also compressing the remaining material so that it efficiently forms a low-mass object", he added.

The fact that stars commonly form in binary systems was used by the team revisiting a paper published exactly 20 years ago.

The researchers then applied the photo erosion framework to demonstrate that a stellar binary could be photo-eroded to form a JuMBO pairing.

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