Inside The Flame Nebula: View 1 | James Webb Space Telescope
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The Flame Nebula lies in the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex and is home to cosmic objects, called brown dwarfs, that are not quite planets, but are also so small their cores cannot sustain fusing hydrogen like full-fledged stars do.
Decades of Hubble data was crucial in identifying candidates for further study, essentially handing the baton to Webb to take an in-depth look at this region using its infrared sensitivity.
Webb took a look at the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, looking for the faintest and the smallest of brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs are very dim and much cooler than stars, making them hard to detect. When they are young, they are a bit warmer and brighter and easier to observe, making the Flame Nebula star-forming region (within this molecular cloud complex) a good place to look for them.
Webb’s ability to see warm objects through dense dust is allowing Webb not only to find brown dwarf candidates, but also to explore their lowest mass limits. Though Webb has the infrared sensitivity to potentially see brown dwarfs as low-mass as half that of Jupiter, the lowest-mass objects scientists found are about 2-3 times the mass of Jupiter. The current hypothesis that this might be at or near the lower limit for the mass of brown dwarfs. This also takes into account the dynamics at play within the molecular clouds where these objects are born.
Image Description: A Webb view of part of the Flame Nebula. The image contains a mixture of reds, blues and browns, and shows red, blue, and white stars.
Release Date: March 10, 2025
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