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And lurking all around this colorful nursery are strange objects that challenge the very definition of a star.

Stars come in all shapes and sizes, from massive stars that explode as supernovas after only a few million years to the smallest and most common stars, red dwarfs, which last for many billions of years. However, there is also a class of substellar objects called brown dwarfs — objects halfway between giant gas planets, like Jupiter, and stars.

In the hunt for tiny brown dwarfs in IC 348, researchers used Webb’s NIRCam instrument in 2024 to survey part of IC 348 and found 39 brown dwarf candidates. The following year, Webb’s NIRSpec instrument studied the light of 15 of them. Nine were identified as new substellar members of the cluster, with the faintest estimated to have masses of around two Jupiters — the least massive brown dwarfs ever found.

How small the smallest brown dwarf can be is an open question in astrophysics. They form as molecular clouds of dust and gas collapse under their own gravity, much like regular stars do. However, unlike stars, brown dwarf cores never become hot enough to fuse hydrogen into helium. The brown dwarfs — or "failed stars," as they're sometimes called — in this JWST image will help researchers constrain the limits of how tiny these strange objects can get.

The upper-right portion of the panorama provides a dramatic look at another stage of star formation. Protostars hidden within the dusty environment fire jets into nearby gas and dust, producing luminous, eye-catching jets and streams known as Herbig-Haro objects. These gargantuan jets can stretch trillions of miles into space; just one tiny detail in one of JWST's biggest images yet.

But if that tremendous view still isn't enough for you, IC 348 was also recently snapped by NASA's Chandra Observatory, which captured the stellar nursery and other cosmic objects shining purple in brilliant X-ray light.

'> James Webb telescope shares one of its biggest images ever, with record-breaking stars hiding in the dust the sun while still escaping?

Many objects have reached much closer than Mercury, including asteroids, comets and spacecraft, experts told Live Science.

At its closest point to the sun, called perihelion, Mercury comes within 29 million miles (47 million kilometers) of our star, according to NASA.

But several known asteroids come even closer. Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at Carnegie Science, an independent research institute in Washington, D.C., said such asteroids, with orbits that cross Mercury's, are called Mercury-crossers. They have highly eccentric orbits, meaning "they did not form in this location but were likely scattered from the main asteroid belt towards the Sun," he told Live Science in an email. A search through NASA's Small-Body Database for such asteroids shows 2024 YL3 is the current record holder. This 463-foot-long (141 meters), skyscraper-size rock has a perihelion of 6.4 million miles (10.3 million km).

Another group of celestial objects, though, may beat 2024 YL3. These are proposed asteroids that are thought to have circular orbits within Mercury's path. Dubbed Vulcanoids, their name comes from Vulcan, a theoretical planet once hypothesized to exist in this region.

Martin Beech, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of Regina in Canada, told Live Science in an email that numerical models show such asteroids would have stable orbits between 5.58 million and 23.23 million miles (8.98 million to 37.39 million km) from the sun's center. This means some Vulcanoids may whiz even nearer the sun than Mercury-crossers do. There's just one glitch: Like their namesake planet, Vulcanoids haven't been shown to exist, and a 2013 study found no trace of them.

But some spacecraft have come much, much closer. For instance, NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which launched in 2018, studied the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona. For the primary mission's final three orbits, the probe took an eccentric path with a perihelion of merely 4.5 million miles (7.3 million km) from the sun's center. At this distance, illustrated graphically on the mission's official webpage, the spacecraft flew through the corona, where a carbon foam shield protected the probe from the extreme heat.

"Sungrazers" and "sun-diving" comets

Another class of natural objects — dubbed sungrazing comets — reach closer still. A 2018 study described such comets as coming closer than 1.49 million miles (2.39 million km) of the sun's center, although any of these comets' precise solar proximity would depend on their orbital parameters.

Man-To Hui, a researcher at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, told Live Science that small sungrazers — some of which are just 30 feet (10 m) wide —break up as they rotate because they get nonuniformly heated, while the sun's powerful gravity pulls apart larger ones. Nonetheless, several escape unscathed; one of the closest observed so far was the Great Southern Comet of 1887, which came within an incredible 446,187 miles (718,070 km) from the sun.

But the real "winners" are "sundiving," or "sunstriking," comets. Such comets likely abounded in the early solar system, although they're thought to be rare nowadays. These comets would cross the sun's visible surface, or photosphere, plunging into the sun. Although no one has detected such a sundiver yet, the 2018 study noted that a comet would need a perihelion less than the sun's radius, or 432,244 miles (695,630 km) from the sun's center. There are no second passes, though ‪—‬ all sundiving comets are destroyed within the sun.

So, the detected object that got closest to the sun was the Great Southern Comet of 1887. If a sundiver is ever spotted, however, it would become the new record-holder, edging out the Great Southern Comet by 13,943 miles (22,439 km).

See how much you know about the sun with our sun quiz!

'> What is the closest any object has gotten to the sun? , Genghis Khan's would likely appear near the top of the list — in part to fact-check the gruesome legends surrounding his burial.

He was born in Mongolia around 1162, and supposedly emerged from the womb clutching a clot of blood in his fist. By all rights, the boy — whose original name was Temüjin — should have died young. His father, a nobleman in their tribe, was poisoned by a rival tribe when Temüjin was nine, and greedy schemers within his own clan banished the boy's family to the empty steppes, expecting them to starve. Historical accounts describe Temüjin as overly sensitive, terrified of dogs and prone to crying.

But he grew up fast. Even before adolescence, he'd already been enslaved (he engineered his own escape) and killed his older half brother. As a young man he discovered that soldiering suited him, and he ruthlessly eliminated all potential rivals among other nomadic tribes, until he was crowned Genghis Khan — universal ruler — in 1206. His other nickname was the Disturber of the Universe. His warriors were bold and battle-tested, and when they stopped murdering each other and turned their attention outward, they proved unstoppable.

They favored blitzkrieg tactics, sweeping in on horses and bombarding the enemy with arrows. But they could be surprisingly patient, too, and perfected the art of siege warfare. One notorious siege involved the city of Merv, in what's now Turkmenistan. Merv was the Alexandria of its day: a desert oasis teeming with gardens and libraries, famous for its silks and refreshing melons.

The Mongols couldn't resist it, and when the terrified artists and merchants inside surrendered after just six days of siege, a massacre ensued. "It was a memorable day for shrieking and weeping," lamented one chronicle. After burning Merv for good measure, Genghis Khan ordered his troops to count the corpses. There were 700,000. Yet however crazy it sounds, life under Genghis Khan had its benefits. He allowed the conquered to worship whatever gods they liked, a rare example of religious tolerance. He introduced the idea of diplomatic immunity to facilitate negotiations, and outlawed torture during interrogations. He promoted free trade, and founded history's first international mail system.

Over time, his empire also spread key technologies like the compass, abacus, printing press, and paper currency, as well as key social programs like universal education for children. No one was more ruthless when conquering (ask Merv). But if the vanquished people picked up the pieces and swore fealty afterward, life generally improved under Mongol rule. Genghis Khan's realm stretched from Korea to the Caspian Sea, an area twice the size of the Roman Empire. (Under his successors, it grew to the size of Africa.) And he accomplished all this with an army of just 100,000 warriors — fewer people than some modern stadiums hold.

Historian Jack Weatherford summed up his achievements thus: "[Imagine] if the United States ... had been founded by one of its illiterate slaves, who, by the sheer force of personality, charisma, and determination, liberated America from foreign rule, united the people, created an alphabet, wrote the constitution, established universal religious freedom, invented a new system of warfare, [and] marched an army from Canada to Brazil." Alexander, Julius Caesar, Napoleon — they weren't fit to carry Genghis Khan's saddle. If anyone in history deserved a grand mausoleum, it was him.

Genghis Khan wanted the opposite. Despite all the blood they shed, the Mongols were oddly squeamish about discussing d-e-a-t-h, so beyond the year 1227, contemporary sources say little about how Genghis Khan died. As a result, rumors multiplied. One story claims he died after tumbling off a horse. Others have him struck down by lightning or an arrow to the knee during battle (at age 65, no less). One source swears he was trying to ravish a conquered queen who, anticipating the crime, concealed a blade inside her vagina that sliced lil' Genghis wide open.

Regardless of the truth, his longtime wife Yesui dressed his body in a white robe, wrapped it in white felt with sticks of fragrant sandalwood, and clasped the shroud shut with golden straps. What happened next is impossible to say for certain. But according to lore, Genghis Khan received probably the most outrageous funeral in history.

After his wife bound him in white, a thousand soldiers took off on horseback to bury him atop a mountain. This cortege quickly turned into a rampage. To conceal their destination, the troops reportedly slaughtered every person they encountered on the 40-day journey, often with the cry "Go to the other world to serve our lord!" In some accounts, the soldiers killed every animal, too. Based on other Mongol burials, they likely interred him 20 yards deep, with the body oriented north-south and the head facing east. They probably tossed some treasures in — gilded saddles, gold rings, pearls wrapped in silk — along with slaves, concubines, and horses. (One tale has the soldiers burying a live baby camel with him, either so its bleating would serve as a funeral dirge, or so the grieving mother could lead them back to the site if necessary.)

After filling the grave, Genghis's soldiers either diverted a river to conceal it or trampled the ground with a thousand horses to obliterate all trace. Then they resumed the merry rampage on the return trip, butchering every unlucky hunter or merchant who wandered across their path. To their surprise, the thousand soldiers were themselves slaughtered when they reached home, as a further guarantee of secrecy — and then those slaughterers were also slaughtered, to make doubly sure.

Genghis Khan took privacy seriously. We have no idea how much of that is true. But it hasn't deterred the hunt for the grave. To the contrary: The elaborate concealment has made the pursuit all the more enticing. Four nations — Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, and Russia — have claimed that Genghis Khan's bones lie within their borders. The strongest claim points to Burkhan Khaldun (God Mountain) in northeast Mongolia. Genghis Khan was born nearby, hunted there regularly, and worshipped the sky god Tengri there. He also once took refuge there while fleeing his enemies, and miraculously escaped. The mountain seemed charmed to him, and he'd mused during his life that it would make an ideal final resting place.

Strengthening the case for Burkhan Khaldun is the fact that later Mongol rulers proclaimed the land around the peak a forbidden zone and stationed a clan of ferocious guards there — the Darkhad, who murdered anyone who dared approach. (In exchange, the Darkhad paid no taxes and avoided compulsory military service.) Incredibly, the Darkhad kept this watch for 700 years, until the founding of the communist Mongolian People's Republic in 1924. The republic was a puppet state of the U.S.S.R., and Soviet leaders had a schizoid attitude toward the Disturber of the Universe. On the one hand, they admired his ruthlessness and gazed longingly at all the territory he'd gobbled up. On the other, they feared his memory would stir up nationalist sentiments in Mongolia and spur a revolt against the hated communists.

To forestall this, the Mongolian government banned the very mention of Genghis Khan's name. And to prevent Burkhan Khaldun from becoming a rallying point, officials fenced off a "highly restricted area" around the peak of 3,900 square miles (twice the size of Delaware), and parked a tank base at the site's entrance. The ban thawed somewhat after Joseph Stalin died in 1953, and one Mongolian official decided to celebrate the Disturber's 800th birthday in 1962 by putting him on a stamp. He overreached. Moscow ordered the man arrested, and he was chopped to bits with an axe. After the republic collapsed in 1992, the restricted area devolved into a nature reserve with some public access. But the land near Burkhan Khaldun remains daunting to explore. It's one of the most desolate places on Earth, with few roads and a population density down there with Greenland's.

Centuries of vegetation growth have choked off many areas, and the clear parts are prone to flash floods. Temperatures can swing from 100 degrees [Fahrenheit, or 38 degrees Celsius] in the summer to 50 below [minus 46 C] in the winter, so cold that even yaks drop dead. None of this has stopped Genghis Khan obsessives from searching out his grave. They've suffered snakebites and frostbite and been left stranded when their vehicles tumbled off cliffs. One man spent 40 years crossing and crisscrossing and re-crisscrossing the slopes and died without finding a thing.

In 2010, a few archaeologists tried a new approach. They posted satellite images of the Burkhan Khaldun region online and recruited volunteers to scour them for bumps, depressions, and other features that might indicate graves. Ten thousand people spent approximately 30,000 hours (3.4 collective years) poring over 2,300 square miles [5,950 square kilometers]. They flagged over a hundred spots worth checking out. While several proved inaccessible due to challenging terrain, 55 legitimate archaeological sites turned up among the rest, including megaliths, Bronze Age burial mounds, and an ancient city.

But there was zero trace of Genghis Khan. One archaeologist lamented that it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, except you don't know what the needle looks like. Call it Genghis Khan's final victory. The diverted river and trampling horses and the slaughter of all potential witnesses have succeeded in hiding him for most of a millennium now. His victims lay scattered across Eurasia, their skeletons long since ground to dust. But the bones of history's greatest warrior remain at peace.

Excerpted from The Museum of Lost Things by Sam Kean, published by National Geographic Partners, LLC. Copyright © 2026. All rights reserved.

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'> Why the tomb of the 'Disturber of the Universe' remains hidden after 800 years

Officially full at 12:49 p.m. EDT on Saturday, the full moon will be best seen rising in the eastern sky later that day, at the time of moonrise where you are. It will appear in the constellation Pisces.

This month's full moon earns the Harvest Moon nickname because it's the full moon closest to the September equinox, which fell on Tuesday (Sept. 22). This year, it coincides with the Mid-Autumn Festival — also called the Moon Festival — which is held in Chinese and Vietnamese communities on the day of the Harvest Moon, according to Timeanddate.com. However, the Harvest Moon's significance goes beyond traditional nicknames, because the moon behaves a bit differently around this point in the calendar.

Typically, moonrise occurs roughly 50 minutes later from one day to the next. Around the Northern Hemisphere's autumnal equinox, however, the moon's path meets the eastern horizon at a relatively shallow angle. That geometry reduces the day-to-day shift in moonrise times, resulting in a string of evenings with bright moonlight arriving soon after the sun goes down. Before electric lighting and modern farm machinery, those brighter early evenings provided useful extra illumination during the autumn harvest.

That's not the case anymore, but skywatchers nevertheless have more than one night when the full lunar disk emerges above the eastern horizon into a sky still filled with twilight. Across North America, the moon will rise only about 25 minutes later on Sunday, Sept. 27 than on the previous evening.

Saturn will add another reason to watch. The ringed planet will appear close to the Harvest Moon, rising just beneath it as seen from North America and is easily bright enough to see without a telescope. However, a backyard telescope or stargazing binoculars can give you an even crisper view of both Saturn and the moon. To get the best chance of catching the moon as it appears, find an observing spot with an unobstructed view to the eastern horizon.

The next full moon, known as the Hunter's Moon, will occur on Friday, Oct. 25 or Saturday, Oct. 26, depending on your time zone. It will also be a supermoon, making it appear larger and brighter than average.

How much do you know about the moon? Test your lunar smarts with our moon quiz!

'> Harvest Moon 2026: See the first full moon of autumn rise alongside Saturn tonight 36 million people worldwide.

Clinically, bipolar disorder is defined as a mood disorder characterized by specific, lasting changes to a person's mood and energy levels. Depending on the type of bipolar disorder, individuals can experience manic, hypomanic and depressive episodes — either individually, or in sequence.

However, "experiencing mania itself is sufficient to have a diagnosis of bipolar [disorder]," said Dr. David Cousins, a clinical senior lecturer and honorary consultant psychiatrist at Newcastle University in the U.K. "It's probably easiest to think of that as the opposite of depression — people become elevated in mood, extremely energized, driven, motivated, and engage in hedonistic behavior with lots of risk taking," he said. "It's a highly detrimental, highly damaging, highly disruptive state."

Treating an illness that operates at such extremes is a difficult balance to strike, with any intervention to treat one emotional state needing to factor in how it could impact the other. "For example, if you gave somebody antidepressants without an antimanic drug, you might either trigger mania or destabilize the illness," Cousins explained.

A combination of antidepressants, antipsychotics, and mood-stabilizing anticonvulsants are often prescribed in combination to juggle these highly variable symptoms. "There are really very few medications that have an overall effect against both poles," Strawbridge said. Once stabilized, the challenge then becomes preventing relapse back into this destructive cycle.

Lithium, by contrast, does not suffer from these limitations, Strawbridge added.

"It's often considered the gold standard for bipolar disorder; it's helpful for the depression and for the mania, but its main benefit overall is in preventing relapse, so stopping either of those two types of episodes from coming back."

Psychiatrists usually prescribe lithium as either lithium carbonate tablets or a lithium citrate liquid, both of which dissociate inside the body into lithium ions and their corresponding counterion (either carbonate or citrate). This simple active form is part of what gives lithium its powerful, broad-ranging mood-stabilizing effect, Strawbridge said.

"Because lithium is quite a simple ion, it's able to disguise itself as sodium, and that means it can slip inside of brain cells, whereas most medications act on the surface of cells," she explained.

Lithium's simple form enables it to spread throughout the brain and rest of the body. Once inside, it interacts with many cellular processes, but doctors still don't really understand the underlying mechanism behind its beneficial effects.

"We know that the monoamine system and the neurotransmitters in the brain that are involved in reward emotions and cognition are disrupted," Victoria Wing, a clinical lecturer at the National Institute for Health and Care Research at Newcastle University and CNTW NHS Foundation Trust, told Live Science. Included in this disruption is the regulation of crucial mood molecules, such as dopamine and serotonin, which may be underactive or overactive depending on the nature of the bipolar episode.

The same small lithium ion also blocks an enzyme called glycogen synthase kinase 3. This enzyme has wide-ranging downstream effects, such as controlling gene activity, regulating the body's circadian rhythms and managing inflammation and cell survival.

"Lithium can also help with autophagy, which is the clearance of debris and toxins in cells, and it has antioxidant effects and boosts mitochondrial function, which are important for cell energy processes," Wing said.

However, despite its manifold therapeutic benefits, lithium does have some drawbacks. While around one-third of people experience profound benefits from the drug, another close third only experience intermediate effects, and the final rough third don't respond at all.

This means it's vital to identify which patients respond well to the drug as early as possible, especially because the cyclic nature of the condition means it can take years to ascertain whether lithium is effective in preventing relapses in the long-term, said Cousins. The drug also has a narrow therapeutic window, which means it has a small margin of safety between doses that are high enough to be effective and those that are toxic to the kidneys and thyroid. Some patients who undergo lithium treatment also report having to urinate more frequently or experiencing slight tremors.

As with any medication, some side effects are unavoidable. The alternatives to lithium also carry their own risks. But if carefully and correctly managed, lithium medications can have a transformative impact for patients.

"I've met a lot of patients through patient involvement groups that have told me how effective and lifesaving lithium has been for them," Wing said. "We know it works, but can we fine-tune the use even better so more people can benefit from it?"

This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.

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'> Why does lithium work against bipolar disorder?