Christmas Surprise from Space: Unraveling the JuMBO Mystery

This Christmas, scientists received an unexpected “gift” from space that may hold the key to solving the enigma of JuMBOs—strange celestial objects that defy classification as planets or stars.

The mysterious JuMBOs, or Jupiter-mass binary objects, have puzzled astronomers for years.

However, a team of researchers believes these objects may actually be stellar cores that have been torn apart by the intense radiation of massive stars, much like children eagerly unwrapping presents on Christmas morning.

According to Space.com, this breakthrough could resolve a mystery that emerged in 2023 when the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) discovered 42 pairs of these free-floating planetary-mass objects in the Orion Nebula Cluster.

These objects were unusual not only because they weren’t tied to a star, but also because they remained in binary pairs, a finding that confounded astronomers.

The team, led by Richard Parker of the University of Sheffield and undergraduate student Jessica Diamond, revisited a decades-old concept to explain how JuMBOs might form.

Their hypothesis suggests that radiation from massive stars is powerful enough to erode the gas core that forms stars.

This process removes some of the material from the core, reducing its mass while compressing the remaining material into a low-mass object—potentially creating a JuMBO.

The team’s research drew on a paper published 20 years ago, which examined the formation of stars in binary systems.

By applying the concept of photo-erosion to this model, they proposed that a stellar binary could be “photo-eroded” to produce the unusual JuMBO pairings observed in the Orion Nebula Cluster.