A mysterious “Rogue Planet” Was observed engulfed 6 billion tonnes of gas and dust per second – an unprecedented pace that blurs the border between the planets and the stars, astronomers said on Thursday.
Unlike the earth and other planets of our solar system, which orbit the sun, the thug planets float freely through the universe without attaching to a star.
Scientists believe that there could be billions of landscaped planets in our alone galaxy – but they are difficult to spot because they especially derive quietly along the perpetual night.
“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,” said Víctor Almendros-Abad, the main author of the new study, in a press release.
These strange objects intrigue astronomers because they are “neither a star nor an appropriate planet”, told AFP of the University of St. Andrews and co-author of a new study.
“Their origin remains an open question: are they the lowest mass objects formed like stars or giant planets ejected from their birth systems?”
The team of researchers behind the new study was amazed to observe an astonishing growth in growth in a Voyou planet about 620 light years from the Earth in the Constellation of Chamaeleon.
The planet, officially called Cha 1107-7626, has a mass of five to 10 times larger than Jupiter.
Scholz explained that the object is “still in its infancy”, having about 1 or 2 million years.
The object develops by sucking the material from a disc that surrounds it – a process called accretion.
But what astronomers saw the arrival of the border between the stars and the planets, “said the co-author of the study, Belinda Damian, in a press release.
In August this year, the planet suddenly started to devour the material of its disc to a record of 6 billion tonnes per second – eight times faster than a few months earlier.
“This is the strongest accretion episode ever recorded for a planetary mass object,” said Almendros-Abad.
“Impressive”
By comparing the light emitted before and during this session of frenzy, scientists discovered that magnetic activity played a role in the conduct of matter towards the object.
This phenomenon was previously observed only in the stars.
Disc chemistry has also changed. The water vapor was detected in the disc during the accretion episode, but not in advance.
It is also something that has already been observed in the stars – but never for a forming planet.
The author of the main study Ray JAYAWARD of Johns Hopkins University said that discovery implies “that certain objects comparable to giant planets form the way the stars do, to contract clouds of gas and dust accompanied by their own disks, and they are going through episodes of growth like newborn stars.”
No matter how much Cha 1107-7626 should always have characteristics similar to the huge planets, because it is similar.
Scholz said that, unlike the stars, this object is “not massive enough to ever have fusion reactions in the nucleus”.
So, like other planets, “it will inevitably cool down,” he added.
Amelia Bayo, another co-author of the study in the Astrophysics newspaper, said: “The idea that a planetary object can behave like a star is impressive.”
This “invites us to ask ourselves what worlds beyond ours could be during their emerging stadiums,” she added.
The observations were made by the very large telescope of the Southern European Observatory in Chile.
Research also included data from the James Webb space telescope. Last week, the webb telescope revealed a Colorful propagation of stars and cosmic dust in the most active star formation region of the Milky Way.
