Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2026

29 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2026 ASTRO PUBLISHING T his starry view of the near- by star-forming region IC 348 is one of the largest im- ages from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope re- leased to the public so far. Using Webb, astronomers searched IC 348 for brown dwarfs, which are less massive than the smallest stars. The researchers discovered brown dwarfs just twice the mass of Jupiter, bringing the study of these curious objects into a new mass range. The star-forming region IC 348 is located just 1000 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. In re- gions like IC 348, cold clouds of molecular hydrogen gas collapse to form new stars, creating glow- ing, sculpted scenes like this one. The star-formation process can cre- ate impressively varied objects, frommassive stars that expire after only a few million years in core-col- lapse supernova explosions to the smallest and most common stars, which are long lived and produce powerful stellar storms. The smallest stars weigh in at a- round 8% of the Sun’s mass. Be- low this mass lies a strange and intriguing class of objects called brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs form in the same way that stars do, through the collapse of molecular clouds, but unlike stars, the cores of brown dwarfs never become hot enough to fuse hydrogen into helium (though many briefly fuse deuterium, or heavy hydrogen, early in their lives). What’s still not clear — and what researchers hoped to learn by using Webb’s sensitive instruments to probe IC 348 — is how small are the smallest objects created by the star-formation progress. In other words, how small is the smallest brown dwarf? Researchers seeking to answer this question first used Webb to study T his collage features a collection of cutouts from the massive star-forming region IC 348. Each of these six panels showcase features of interest that are visible throughout the field. 1: Star embedded in a nebula — This small portion of the field contains two stars deeply embedded in a cloud of gas and dust. The large star’s shorter-wavelength infrared light is absorbed by the dust, leaving it brightest at longer wavelengths, which are coloured orange; the same dust absorption creates the silhouettes in the image. 2: Central star cluster — The centre of IC 348 is dominated by wispy curtains of gas that form a large loop. Winds from the many stars sculpt the clouds of interstellar gas and dust, and the clouds reflect the light from the cluster’s stars — what is known as a reflection nebula. 3: Stars and faint outflows — Here on the outskirts of the field, two stars shine out of clouds of gas and dust. The stars appear equally bright, but the orange one is more deeply embedded. Thin red arcs and blotches near the stars are hot, glowing shockwaves created by fast-moving outbursts from the stars. 4: Herbig-Haro objects — This relatively small region near the top of the image is packed with long, glowing outflows and bold colours in the waves of gas and dust. The outflows, known as Herbig-Haro objects, are created by stellar winds or jets from protostars ploughing into the thick clouds around them. No less than three ob- jects in this area have previously been the subjects of their own images, demonstrat- ing how rich an area of star formation this is. 5: Gravitational lensing — This tiny object, at first glance appearing almost like a planet with a ring, is in fact two galaxies. The blue one is closer to us, and the or- ange galaxy is very far away behind it but lined up just right. This causes the light from the orange galaxy to be bent by the gravity of the blue galaxy, creating a magnified, warped image. 6: Spiral galaxies — Some of the more prominent galaxies that can be seen behind the clouds of gas and dust. While the IC 348 region is around 1000 light-years from Earth, these galaxies are millions of light-years away, and the even smaller galaxies that ap- pear as coloured dots in the background are up to billions of light-years distant. [ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, K. Luhman, C. Alves De Oliveira, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)]