Artist’s impression of Cha 1107-7626, a rogue planet about 620 light years away. Image courtesy of ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser
Joel Kontinen
A free-floating planet has been seen devouring astonishing amounts of matter, hinting that stars and planets are more alike than we thought.
A ravenous
rogue planet has been caught eating 6 billion tonnes of gas and dust per
second. This behaviour blurs the line between planets and stars,
suggesting both can form in similar ways.
Rogue
planets, free-floating balls of gas unattached to any parent star, appear to
be extremely common, and may even exceed the number of stars we see in the
galaxy. But astronomers still don’t understand whether they form like planets
in orbit around a star and are then banished to wander the galaxy alone, or if
they can form like stars by themselves.
Source:
Alex Wilkins 2025
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