Mysterious pairs of "rogue," Jupiter-size objects may have arisen from embryonic stars, a new study suggests. The theory could explain some characteristics of these Jupiter-mass binary objects (JuMBOs), such as why members of each pair are so widely separated, but more data is needed to confirm the idea.
The James Webb Space Telescope spotted these JuMBOs in the trapezoid zone of the Orion Nebula. Each JuMBO pair comprises two gas giants, each between 0.7 and 30 times the mass of Jupiter. These "rogue" planet partners have been found orbiting each other — but not a parent star — at a distance of about 25 to 400 astronomical units, or 25 to 400 times the average distance between Earth and the sun.
