Hungry Rogue Planet swallows gas and dust at 6 billion tonnes per second

The Voyoure planets live according to their own rules, floating freely through the cosmos without being linked to a star. Without stellar supervision, these isolated planetary bodies can often behave in an unusual manner. Astronomers have discovered a lamp planet undergoing a rather unusual growth push, slipping on its surrounding gas and dust at an unprecedented rate.

The Voyou planet is located about 620 light years in the Caméléon constellation. It is still in its process of early training and feeds on a disk surrounding gas and dust, the remains of its birth process. Using the very large telescope of the Southern European Observatory (ESO), the team of scientists behind the recent discovery revealed that the planet, officially appointed Cha 1107-7626, eats the equipment at a record rate of 6 billion tonnes per second.

The discovery is detailed in an article published Thursday in Astrophysical newspaper letters, Detailing the highest growth rate ever observed in a planetary body.

Diet

The thug planets can form in two ways. They were born around a star and then expelled from their cosmic house by interacting with other bodies of the system, or they are formed independently in the aftermath of the collapse of a cloud of gas and dust. Free Floatrs still have equipment discs around them, the remains of their training process. Although they are still in their growth phase, the planets generally feed on the gas and dust found in the protoplanetary disc which surrounds them in a process called accretion.

For Cha 1107-7626, the speed at which it accuses equipment is not stable. By observing the planet over time, astronomers behind the new study found that in August, it began to accre material about eight times faster than it was a few months earlier.

“This is the strongest episode of accretion ever recorded for a planetary mass object,” said the Víctor Almendros-Abad, astronomer of the Astronomical Observatory of Palermo, National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), and the main author of the new study, in a press release. “People can consider planets as calm and stable worlds, but with this discovery, we see that planetary mass objects floating freely in space can be exciting places.”

Although still young, the planet is already a big boy with a mass of five to 10 times that of Jupiter. The team of astronomers has also discovered that its unusual growth can be attributed to its magnetic activity, which makes the equipment fall into the disc at a remarkably high rate.

The chemistry of the disc surrounding the planet also seems to have changed during its accretion, the team detecting water vapor during the process but not before. This type of activity has never been observed on the stars, which suggests that even planetary objects with a lower mass can have magnetic fields strong enough to drive their accretion.

“The idea that a planetary object can behave like a star is impressive and invites us to ask ourselves what worlds beyond ours could be during their emerging stadiums,” said Amelia Bayo, astronomer ESO and co-author of the study, in a press release.