Astronomers Spot Rogue Planet Devouring Six Billion Tons Per Second
Edited by: Fasi Uddin
A Planetary Growth Spurt Stuns Astronomers
Astronomers have witnessed a dramatic growth spurt in a rogue planet, a solitary world adrift without a parent star. Using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT), scientists found the object is swallowing gas and dust at six billion tonnes per second — the fastest planetary growth rate ever measured.
"Planets are often seen as calm, unchanging places, yet this discovery shows that free-floating planetary bodies can be surprisingly dynamic," explained Victor Almendros-Abad, astronomer at INAF's Astronomical Observatory of Palermo and lead author of the study.
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Meet Cha 1107-7626: The Hungry Rogue Planet
A Giant Lurking in the Constellation Chamaeleon
The planet, officially named Cha 1107-7626, sits around 620 light-years away in the southern constellation Chamaeleon. Estimated to weigh five to ten times Jupiter's mass, it is still forming, pulling in matter from a disk of gas and dust around it.
Astronomers discovered that this inflow of material is far from steady. Instead, the planet undergoes sudden feeding frenzies that blur the line between planetary and stellar behaviour.
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Record-Breaking Accretion Episode
Feeding Eight Times Faster Than Before
By August 2025, Cha 1107-7626 was feeding nearly eight times faster than it had earlier in the year—gulping down six billion tonnes of material every second.
"This is the most intense accretion episode ever seen in a planetary-mass body," Almendros-Abad told reporters.
The breakthrough was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and relied on ESO's VLT X-shooter spectrograph in Chile's Atacama Desert, supplemented with archival data from the SINFONI instrument.
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Teamwork Between Ground and Space Observatories
The researchers paired fresh observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with ground-based ESO data. This synergy allowed them to track not only the scale of the feeding event but also its chemical fingerprint.
"The true nature of rogue planets remains unclear," explained Aleks Scholz, co-author and astronomer at the University of St Andrews. "Are they star-like objects of very low mass, or planets expelled from their birthplaces?"
Blurring the Line Between Stars and Planets
Star-Like Behaviour in a Planetary Body
The study suggests rogue planets might share formation traits with stars. Similar accretion surges have been seen in young stellar bodies, hinting at a continuum between planets and stars.
"This discovery blurs the boundary between stars and planets," said co-author Belinda Damian. "It offers a glimpse into the earliest stages of rogue planet formation."
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Unprecedented Discovery: Water Vapour in the Disk
By comparing light from before and during the accretion burst, astronomers uncovered magnetic activity driving the sudden infall of matter. Such behaviour had previously only been documented in stars.
Even more remarkably, the team spotted water vapour emerging in the surrounding disk during the event—a phenomenon never before observed in a planet.
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Why Rogue Planets Are So Difficult to Spot
Rogue planets are extremely faint, lacking the reflective glow of nearby stars. Their solitary existence makes them among the hardest objects to detect in the cosmos.
The discovery of Cha 1707-7626's feeding frenzy demonstrates the power of advanced instrument like VLT and JWST to probe these elusive worlds.
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The Future: ESO's Extremely Large Telescope
Searching the darkness for More Rogues
ESO's upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), under construction in the Chilean desert, promises to transform the study of rogue planets.
With its giant mirror and state-of-art instruments, the ELT will allow astronomers to probe more free-floating planetary bodies and even analyze their atmospheres and disks in detail.
"The notion that a planet can mimic a star is awe-inspiring," said ESO astronomer Amelia Bayo, stressing that ELT will deepen humanity's grasp of planetary diversity.
Broader Implications: Rethinking Planetary Formation
The study has cosmological consequences:
- If rogue planets can feed like stars, they may form in star-like ways inside dark molecular clouds.
- Alternatively, they could be expelled from planetary systems, then continue evolving independently.
- The discovery of magnetically-driven accretion and water vapour points to chemistry once thought exclusive to stellar nurseries.
Such findings may redefine what astronomers consider a planet.
Conclusion: A Planet That Acts Like a Star
The discovery of Cha 1107-7626's extraordinary feeding frenzy provides a rare glimpse into planetary evolution in real time.
This rogue planet not only challenges the boundaries between planets and stars but also underscores the importance of next-generation telescopes like JWST and the forthcoming ELT.
As Almendros-Abad's team has shown, the universe still holds surprises that rewrite the textbooks.
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