First 'hybrid' star and planet object revealed outside the Milky Way

Strange objects recently captured by the James Webb Space Telescope could reveal new secrets of the early universe.

According to Live Science, astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope looked through the back fence of the Milky Way galaxy and discovered that there seemed to be strange objects wandering among the young stars.

When they zoomed in on the young star cluster NGC 602 in the Small Magellanic Cloud, one of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies, they found evidence of brown dwarfs.

This is the first time this type of "hybrid" object has been detected outside the Milky Way.

The young star cluster NGC 602, where dozens of objects hovering between star and planetary states have just been discovered - (Image: NASA/ESA/CSA).

Brown dwarfs have been known for quite some time but still leave scientists puzzled.

They are exotic objects that exceed the size limit of planets but are not large enough to sustain nuclear fusion like stars. They also possess a host of other characteristics that hover between the states of stars and planets.

One of the great mysteries is how they form, as stars or as planets. Scientists generally favor the theory that they form like stars.

What we observed inside NGC 602 fits that hypothesis, says European Space Agency (ESA) scientist Peter Zeidler, lead author of the new study on these objects.

"Brown dwarfs appear to form in the same way as stars, they just don't gather enough mass to become full-fledged stars," said Dr Zeidler.

A total of 64 brown dwarfs have been detected in NGC 602, with masses ranging from 50 to 84 times that of Jupiter.

Further study of this extragalactic group of failed stars could help clarify why so many of the "stars" appear to fail to ignite.

But these strange objects could also reveal new insights into the early universe, according to researchers.

NGC 602 is a young star cluster, only 3 million years old, with an internal environment consisting mainly of hydrogen and helium, with very little concentration of heavier elements.

In other words, it closely mimics the early cosmic environment, which has not yet been chemically enriched by generations of stars.

So, according to co-author Elena Sabbi from the US National Science Foundation's NOIRLab, studying the young brown dwarfs formed in NGC 602 will help us better understand the nature of the first objects born in the early universe.