Rogue Planet Devours Gas and Dust at Record-Breaking Six Billion Tons Per Second

In the vast darkness of interstellar space, astronomers have witnessed a celestial object undergoing a "growth spurt" of unprecedented scale. A rogue planet, a world untethered to any star, has been observed consuming surrounding gas and dust at a staggering rate of six billion tons per second. This discovery, announced in a report on October 2, 2025, represents the most powerful growth rate ever documented for any type of planet, offering a dramatic and invaluable glimpse into the chaotic processes of planetary formation. The observations were made by an international team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) located in Chile's Atacama Desert.

earthsky.org reported, The object of this intense study, officially named Cha 1107-7626, is located approximately 620 light-years from Earth in the Chamaeleon constellation. Unlike the planets of our solar system, which formed and remain in orbit around a parent star, rogue planets drift freely through the galaxy. Cha 1107-7626, estimated to be five to ten times the mass of Jupiter, is still in its infancy and is surrounded by its own disk of gas and dust. The team of astronomers, led by Víctor Almendros-Abad of the Astronomical Observatory of Palermo in Italy, found that the planet's growth was not steady. By August 2025, its accretion rate—the process of accumulating mass—had surged to eight times faster than it was just months before, reaching the six-billion-ton-per-second peak. This violent feeding frenzy challenges existing models of planetary evolution and blurs the line between how planets and stars are born.

The significance of this finding extends beyond the sheer scale of the accretion. The research, which utilized the VLT's X-shooter spectrograph and data from the James Webb Space Telescope, revealed that the planet's powerful magnetic field appears to be driving the infall of material—a mechanism previously observed only in young stars. Furthermore, the chemical signature of the disk changed during the growth spurt, with water vapor being detected during the event but not before. These star-like behaviors in a planetary-mass object provide strong evidence that at least some rogue planets may form through the same processes as stars, by the direct collapse of a gas cloud, rather than being ejected from an existing solar system. This discovery opens a new window into the earliest, most tumultuous stages of cosmic formation for these lonely worlds.

• Background on Rogue Planets: Also known as free-floating planets (FFPs), these objects are not gravitationally bound to a star and wander the galaxy alone. Their origin is a major topic of debate, with two leading theories: either they are formed within a planetary system and later ejected through gravitational instabilities, or they form in isolation from a collapsing cloud of gas and dust, much like a star but without gaining enough mass to ignite nuclear fusion. Detecting them is incredibly difficult as they emit very little light and cannot be found using traditional exoplanet detection methods like the transit technique.
• The European Southern Observatory's VLT: The Very Large Telescope is a flagship facility for ground-based astronomy, operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) on Cerro Paranal in Chile. It is not a single telescope but an array of four 8.2-meter Unit Telescopes, which can be used individually or combined. The facility is equipped with a suite of advanced instruments, including spectrographs like X-shooter, which can study a wide range of light wavelengths simultaneously and are crucial for analyzing the composition and behavior of distant celestial objects.
• The Science of Planetary Accretion: Accretion is the process by which celestial bodies grow by gravitationally attracting and accumulating additional matter. For gas giants, this typically occurs in two stages: the formation of a solid core, followed by a period of rapid, or "runaway," gas accretion once the core reaches a critical mass. The observation of Cha 1107-7626 in a powerful accretion burst suggests it is in this runaway phase, pulling material from its surrounding disk at an extreme rate. This process is fundamental to how planets, especially gas giants, build up their immense mass.
• Implications for Planet Formation Models: The star-like behavior of Cha 1107-7626, including its magnetically driven accretion burst, lends significant weight to the theory that some rogue planets form directly from the gravitational collapse of gas clouds. This process, once thought to be exclusive to stars and brown dwarfs, now appears to extend down to objects only a few times more massive than Jupiter. This discovery blurs the line between planet and star formation, suggesting a continuous spectrum of formation rather than distinct categories.
• A Changing Chemical Environment: A key finding from the VLT observations was the detection of water vapor in the planet's surrounding disk during the accretion burst, which was absent in previous observations. This indicates that such intense accretion events can dramatically and rapidly alter the chemistry of the material available for building a planetary system. This transient chemical signature is another behavior once thought to be exclusive to the environments around young stars.
• The Role of Magnetic Fields: For the first time in a planetary-mass object, a powerful magnetic field has been identified as a key driver of a massive accretion event. In young stars, magnetic fields act like channels, funneling material from the surrounding disk onto the star's surface. Observing a similar mechanism in a rogue planet suggests that even these low-mass, isolated bodies can generate strong magnetic fields, further cementing their similarity to forming stars.
• Future Observations and Next Steps: While this discovery is groundbreaking, the faint and elusive nature of rogue planets makes them difficult to study. Astronomers will likely conduct follow-up observations of Cha 1107-7626 to see how its growth evolves. Future observatories, particularly ESO's upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), will be instrumental in this field. With its massive mirror and advanced instruments, the ELT will be able to find and characterize many more of these wandering worlds, providing a clearer picture of their origins and life cycles.