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                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2024 January 15
    A cluster of stars is shown along with surrounding nebular gas a and
   dust. Shown in infrared light in pink, the dust winds around the nebula
   center and itself appears composed of many finer filaments. Please see
               the explanation for more detailed information.

                        Star Cluster IC 348 from Webb
   Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and K. Luhman (Penn State U.) and
                         C. Alves de Oliveira (ESA)

   Explanation: 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
   reflection nebula. Besides bright stars, several cool objects have been
   located in IC 348, visible because they glow brighter in infrared
   light. These objects are hypothesized to be low mass brown dwarfs.
   Evidence for this includes the detection of an unidentified atmospheric
   chemical, likely a hydrocarbon, seen previously in the atmosphere of
   Saturn. These objects appear to have masses slightly greater than known
   planets, only a few times greater than Jupiter. Together, these
   indicate that this young star cluster contains something noteworthy --
   young planet-mass brown dwarfs that float free, not orbiting any other
   star.

                      Tomorrow's picture: almost orion
     __________________________________________________________________

       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Ryan Smallcomb Specific rights apply.
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                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
                           NASA Science Activation
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

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