Planet-like objects in the Orion Nebula have been revealed for the first time in images from the James Webb Space Telescope. The Orion Nebula, one of the brightest nebulae in the night sky, has long presented astronomers with an abundance of celestial objects to study. It is identifiable as the sword in the Orion constellation and is located 1,300 light-years from Earth. Astronomers managed to discover unprecedented details by capturing mosaics of the Orion Nebula in short and long wavelengths of light. Whilst searching for low-mass objects, astronomers Samuel G. Pearson - a European Space Agency research fellow at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands - and Mark J. McCaughrean - senior adviser for science and exploration at the European Space Agency - came across something they had never before seen. Their discovery appears to defy some fundamental astronomical theories: pairs of planet-like objects with masses between 0.6 and 13 times the mass of Jupiter. They have been dubbed Jupiter Mass Binary Objects, or JuMBOs. "Although some of them are more massive than the planet Jupiter, they will be roughly the same size and only slightly large," said Pearson. The astronomers found 40 pairs of JuMBOs, and although they exist in pairs, the objects are typically about 200 astronomical units apart, or 200 times the distance between Earth and the sun. This means it can take between 20,000 and 80,000 years for the objects to complete an orbit around each other. McCaughrean and Pearson have written two research papers based on their discoveries in the Orion Nebula. The preliminary findings are available on a preprint site called arXiv whilst the studies have been submitted to academic journals for publication. But many questions about JuMBOs remain. "Scientists have been working on theories and models of star and planet formation for decades, but none of them have ever predicted that we would find pairs of super low mass objects floating alone in space - and we're seeing lots of them," Pearson said. "The main that we learn for this is that there is something fundamentally wrong with either our understanding of planet formation, star formation, or both." Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The US plans to purchase about 12 million barrels of oil this year as it begins to refill

A mysterious object crashed into the Moon last year, and scientists think they’ve finally figured out what it was. On March 4, 2022, a piece of space junk hurtled towards the surface of our celestial companion, leaving behind not one but two craters – prompting speculation as to what exactly the manmade object was. And now, in a paper published in the Planetary Science Journal, a team of researchers at the University of Arizona (UArizona) have offered “definitive proof” that it was a booster from a Chinese space rocket that had spent several years hurtling through space. But the most interesting part of all this? The defunct piece of spacecraft was apparently carrying a secret cargo. Initially, based on its path through the sky, the UArizona team thought it was an errant SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster from a 2015 launch. However, after analysing how precise light signals bounced off its surface, they later concluded that it was more likely to be a booster from a Chang'e 5-T1 – a rocket launched back in 2014 as part of China’s lunar exploration programme. And yet, the Chinese space agency denied ownership, insisting that their rocket booster burned up in the Earth's atmosphere upon re-entry. But the US Space Command refuted this claim by revealing that the rocket’s third stage never re-entered the planet’s atmosphere. Furthermore, two key pieces of evidence gathered by the UArizona researchers suggested that there was more to the object than just a simple abandoned rocket booster. Firstly, the way it reflected light. The paper’s lead author, Tanner Campbell, explained in a statement: "Something that's been in space as long as this is subjected to forces from the Earth's and the moon's gravity and the light from the sun, so you would expect it to wobble a little bit, particularly when you consider that the rocket body is a big empty shell with a heavy engine on one side. “But this was just tumbling end-over-end, in a very stable way." In other words, the rocket booster must have had some kind of counterweight to its two engines, each of which would have weighed around 545kg (1,200lbs) without fuel. The stability with which the object rotated led Campbell and his colleagues to deduce that “there must have been something more mounted to [its] front”. Secondly, the team were struck by the impact the booster left when it slammed into the Moon. It created two craters, around 100ft (30.5 metres) apart, instead of one, which, according to Campbell was very unusual. He pointed out that the craters left behind by Apollo rockets are either round, if the object came straight down, or oblong if it crashed down at a shallow angle. "This is the first time we see a double crater," he said. "We know that in the case of Chang'e 5 T1, its impact was almost straight down, and to get those two craters of about the same size, you need two roughly equal masses that are apart from each other." And yet, despite the rigour of their investigation, the UArizona team have been unable to identify what exactly this additional object was. "We have no idea what it might have been – perhaps some extra support structure, or additional instrumentation, or something else," Campbell admitted. "We probably won't ever know." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

MrBeast reveals that closing his mouth for his videos' thumbnails is increasing his viewer count

Authorities requested the public's assistance in finding the missing teenager through a Facebook post and asked people to spread and amplify the news

We don't know about you, but #CleanTok is a corner of the internet we find oddly comforting and addicting. Watching these ASMR videos of people tirelessly spraying, wiping, and vacuuming every surface of their households stirs up a vicarious sense of accomplishment and, in turn, motivates us to spruce up our own homes. This trend has also been a rather handy way to discover cheap but useful Amazon products.

By Toby Sterling and Stephanie van den Berg THE HAGUE (Reuters) -The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday disclosed a

It’s been nearly a month since the Titan submarine tragically imploded on its descent down to the wreck of the Titanic, but social media’s morbid fascination with the event does not seem to have faded. A video outlining how the submersible imploded has gone viral, wracking up more than 10 million views since it was posted on YouTube at the start of July. The explainer goes into detail about how implosions differ from explosions, and what the disaster would have looked like. Titan began its journey towards the wreck of the cruise liner on June 18. Shortly after, it lost contact with people on the surface. The US Coast Guard later revealed the vessel had suffered a “catastrophic implosion”, after deep-sea robots found debris on 22 June. Officials later said “presumed human remains” were recovered from the site. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The video simulating the implosion was posted by AiTelly, an account which specialises in “3D engineering animations”. The narrator explains that in the Titan’s case, the implosion was caused by “high hydro-static pressure of the surrounding water, which happened within a fraction of a millisecond”. “At the depth the Titanic rests, there is around 5,600 pounds-per-square inch of pressure. That’s almost 400 times the pressure we experience on the surface. “As the submersible is deep in the ocean it experiences the force on its surface due to the water pressure. When this force becomes larger than the force [the] hull can withstand, the vessel implodes violently.” The animation shows the submersible suddenly bucking under the pressure, noting that the debris was found just 1,600 feet from the Titanic wreck, in five different parts. It said that a possible design flaw with the Titan was that it used “mostly carbon fibres, which have the advantage of being lighter than titanium or steel”. However, it added: “The properties of carbon fibres for deep sea applications are however not that well understood. It can crack and break suddenly.” The victims were Hamish Harding, 58, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman Dawood, 19, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, and Stockton Rush, 61. Social media users responded to the video in their droves. One person said: “Who in their right mind would consider going into one of those things? No matter how safe, you have to be pretty brave.” Another person said: “The whole world is on a morbid curiosity kick with this sub.” One commenter added: “The moments before the OceanGate imploded must’ve been a really scary and harrowing experience for the 5 people involved.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 26, 2023--

Like many Americans, finding a great deal is always a solid win. By taking advantage

By Jennifer Rigby and Martin Coulter LONDON France's radiation watchdog has banned sales of Apple's iPhone 12 after

First-quarter earnings from Home Depot, Cisco Systems, Take-Two, Target, Walmart, Alibaba, Applied Materials, Ross Stores, and Deere. Plus, retail sales and leading economic index.