James Webb Telescope discovers ‘failed star’ in breathtaking star cluster near Earth — Space Photo of the Week

Surrounded by clouds of orange and brown gas and dust and filled with twinkling stars, this new image from the James Webb Space Telescope appears to mark the entrance to a cosmic wonderland.

In fact, this photo includes a prominent star cluster known as Westerland 2, located within a star-forming nebula known as Gum 29. The entire scene takes place within the Milky Way galaxy, 20,000 light-years from Earth.

According to the European Space Agency, this brilliant cluster is compact, measuring between 6 and 13 light years in diameter, and contains about 3,000 stars. The young star clusters seen here, about 2 million years old, contain some of the hottest, brightest, and most massive stars in the galaxy.

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Westerlund 2 was also captured by the Hubble Space Telescope 10 years ago to commemorate Hubble’s 25th anniversary in orbit. Its images, created using visible light and some near-infrared data, revealed the complex features of the star cluster and its surrounding nebula, showing a surprising landscape of dust columns, ridges, and valleys.

Now, the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed an even more vibrant picture of this cluster full of bright young stars. This latest portrait combines infrared data from the telescope’s near-infrared camera and mid-infrared instruments.

This stunning image highlights not only the young, massive star, but also the clouds and dust walls formed by its intense light. These carved regions are surrounded by bundles of orange and red gas and are brightly illuminated by the powerful light of nearby stars.

The entire scene is interconnected by a network of blue and pink wisps that look like substances drifting away from the scene. Some small stars appear to be just beginning to shine, but are still buried in the thick clouds in which they formed. Larger, brighter stars much closer to us exhibit eight-line diffraction patterns created by the interaction of starlight and telescope instruments.

The countless twinkling stars are the result of a continuous cycle of star formation. In this cycle, baby stars in stellar nurseries emit powerful radiation that heats the surrounding nebula and triggers the formation of new stars.

The new observations, taken over a wide range of infrared wavelengths, include bands sensitive to methane and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emissions. PAH emissions track heated gases and dust, while methane tracks low-mass cold objects. As a result, astronomers identified a population of brown dwarfs, or “failed stars,” containing objects with only about 10 times the mass of Jupiter.

Brown dwarfs are unique objects that straddle the line between stars and planets. Their masses are intermediate between those of typical stars and planets, ranging from 10 to 90 times the mass of Jupiter. However, they do not have enough mass to cause fusion within the nucleus. New observations from the James Webb Telescope could reveal insights into the different stages of a star’s life and how planet-forming disks around massive stars function.

For more sublime space images, check out this week’s space photo archive.