Rogue Planet Gobbles 6 Billion Tons of Gas per Second — Behaving Like a Star
A Cosmic Feeding Frenzy Astronomers have long known that rogue planets (also called free‑floating planetary‑mass objects) drift through space without a host star sciencealert.com. Most are cold and quiet, but Cha 1107-7626 is anything but quiet. In late June 2025, it suddenly brightened dramatically. Follow-up observations revealed an EXor‑type accretion burst – a rapid feeding episode like those seen in infant stars sciencealert.com. By August, the planet’s accretion rate had skyrocketed: at its peak it was pulling in roughly 6 billion tons of cosmic gas and dust every second phys.org. This translates to about 10⁻⁷ Jupiter masses per year – an unheard‑of rate for any planet sciencealert.com. Víctor Almendros‑Abad, an