The Area around Rogue Planet Cha 1107-7626—Visible Light & Infrared Views

The Area around Rogue Planet Cha 1107-7626—Visible Light & Infrared Views

This visible-light image, part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2, shows the position in the sky of the rogue planet Cha 1107-7626. The planet (not visible here) is located exactly at the center of the frame.

This infrared image, taken with the European Southern Observatory’s Visible and Infrared Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) shows the position in the sky of the rogue planet Cha 1107-7626. The planet is a small dot located exactly at the center of the frame.

Location in the sky of the rogue planet Cha 1107-7626 in visible light and infrared. Astronomers have found an intense ‘growth spurt’ in this planet that does not orbit a star. Observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) reveal that this free-floating planet is eating up gas and dust from its surroundings at a rate of six billion tonnes a second, the strongest ever found for a planet of any kind.

The newly studied object, with a mass five to 10 times the mass of Jupiter, is located about 620 light-years away in the constellation Chamaeleon. Officially named Cha 1107-7626, this rogue planet is still forming and is fed by a surrounding disc of gas and dust. This material constantly falls onto the free-floating planet, a process known as accretion. However, the team led by Almendros-Abad has now found that the rate at which the young planet is accreting is not steady.

Credit: European Southern Observatory / Digitized Sky Survey 2/Meingast et al.
Release Date: October 2, 2025

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