The James Webb telescope confirmed a free-floating "brown dwarf" only about twice Jupiter's mass — drifting through space with no star to orbit, yet carrying its own disc of planet-forming material. Too light to be a normal star, too star-like in birth to be a planet. Story published 20 Sep 2026.
A vagabond roams with no fixed address — and space is full of them. This Webb find is a cosmic vagabond: it drifts through the cluster without orbiting any star, yet carries a warm disc that could build planets. Old French: wakare (wander) + bond. Its mass screams "planet", its birth screams "star" — and astronomy now has to redraw the boundary between the two.
Keep it: Vagabond = wanderer. Once an insult for drifters; for astronomers, it's now a job description.
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