NASA has released a new view of IC 348, a place where stars form. It is about 1,000 light-years from Earth. Researchers used the Webb telescope to find small objects called brown dwarfs. Some have only twice the mass of Jupiter. They form from clouds of gas, like stars. However, their centres cannot produce energy in the same way as ordinary stars.
The team first took pictures, then studied the light from selected objects more closely. One tiny brown dwarf showed signs of a surrounding disk. Small planets could be forming there. The image also shows young stars sending material into nearby gas. These findings raise new questions about how small such objects can be.