Astronomers used the powerful James Webb Space Telescope to sleuth out some of these objects, called brown dwarfs, in a vibrant star-forming region of our galaxy called the Flame Nebula. Brown dwarfs are too small to trigger the nuclear engines in stars, but are more massive than most planets. They are unbound, free-flying objects in the universe.

Zoom into an amazing James Webb Space Telescope view of galaxy NGC 3256. It is " the wreckage of a head-on collision between two equally massive spiral galaxies," according to ESA/NASA. Credit: ESA/Webb,