About 620 light years away in the constellation Chamaeleon, a strange planet is devouring everything around it at a furious pace.Cha 1107-7626, a “rogue” planet because it doesn’t orbit a star, has suddenly increased its appetite in recent months and is now gobbling every bit of gas, dust and rocks near it at an astonishing rate of six billion tons per second, according to a new study by European scientists published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.The planet is about five to 10 times Jupiter’s mass and has been growing for aeons, according to observations taken by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the Atacama Desert of Chile.But in August, scientists noticed that its growth had spiked to about eight times what it had been earlier in the year, making its dramatic growth spurt the fastest observed in any planet, rogue or not, according to the scientists.“This is the strongest accretion episode ever recorded for a planetary-mass object,” said Victor Almendros-Abad, the study’s first author and astronomer at the National Institute of Astrophysics in Palermo, Italy, in a statement about the research. What’s also interesting about Cha 1107-7626 is that it’s growing in a similar way as a young star, which gets bigger by devouring cosmic dust and other material in its surroundings; young stars also have sudden growth spurts — just like Cha 1107-7626.“This discovery blurs the line between stars and planets and gives us a sneak peek into the earliest formation periods of rogue planets,” said study coauthor Belinda Damian, an astronomer at the University of St Andrews, in the statement.By analyzing data from the VLT, the scientists came upon their discovery and its startling connection to star formation when they measured the amount of light coming from this hungry planet before and during this sudden episode of cosmic binging.They also picked up a strong magnetic field originating in the planet — most likely helping fuel this burst of growth — and the hint of water vapor in the dusty disc around it. Both features are also found in star formation.The scientists are excited about these findings because it tells them more about these strange new worlds, which may have either been failed stars or were kicked out of its own star systems; some have speculated there are trillions of these rogue planets floating about in space, but they’re hard to detect.“People may think of planets as quiet and stable worlds, but with this discovery we see that planetary-mass objects freely floating in space can be exciting places,” said Almendros-Abad.More on exoplanets: James Webb Discovers First-Ever Exoplanet by Taking a Picture of ItThe post Scientists Spot “Rogue” Planet Floating Between Stars, Devouring Everything in Reach appeared first on Futurism.