#ic348

IC 348

Constellation Perseus 

Distance: 1.000 ly

The James Webb Space Telescope has just uncovered multiple free-floating brown dwarfs in the IC 348 star cluster! 🌌 These mysterious objects are larger than most planets but too small to be stars. Three of these brown dwarfs, circled in the image, weigh less than eight times the mass of Jupiter—and the tiniest one is rewriting theories with a mass as low as 3-4 times Jupiter's!

🌠 Marvel at the wonders of space, from the star-forming region to the interstellar material creating this celestial spectacle. This discovery challenges what we thought we knew about star formation.

Sometimes, it’s the stars that are the hardest to see that are the most interesting. IC 348 is a young star cluster that illuminates surrounding filamentary dust. The stringy and winding dust appears pink in this recently released infrared image from the Webb Space Telescope. In visible light, this dust reflects mostly blue light, giving the surrounding material the familiar blue hue of a…