Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found a brown dwarf (an object more massive than Jupiter but smaller than a star) that may display possible aurorae, like the familiar Northern Lights on our world. This is an unexpected mystery because the brown dwarf, known as W1935, is an isolated object in space, with no nearby star to create an aurora.

Aurorae on Earth are made when energetic particles from the Sun are captured by our planet’s magnetic field. Those particles cascade down into our atmosphere near Earth’s poles, colliding with gas molecules and creating eerie, dancing curtains of light. Since W1935 has no star to generate a stellar wind, it’s possible that external interactions with either interstellar plasma or a nearby active moon (like Jupiter’s Io) may help account for the observed infrared emission.