Rogue planet found growing at record rate | ESO News

About this episode

Astronomers have discovered a rogue planet experiencing an unprecedented growth rate.

Astronomers have found an intense ‘growth spurt’ in a rogue planet –– a planet that doesn’t orbit a star. Observations with ESO’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. This video summarises the discovery.

Topics covered

• astronomy
• rogue planets
• planet formation
• gas and dust
• observational astronomy

Keywords

• rogue planet
• growth spurt
• Very Large Telescope
• gas and dust
• astronomy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: European Southern Observatory

Places: Very Large Telescope, rogue planet

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