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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)   
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