Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2026

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2026 ASTRO PUBLISHING about the nature of the accretion process. Remarkably, magnetic ac- tivity appears to have played a role in driving the dramatic infall of mass, something that has only been observed in stars before. This suggests that even low-mass objects can possess strong mag- netic fields capable of powering such accretion events. The team also found that the chemistry of the disc around the planet changed during the accre- tion episode, with water vapour being detected during it but not before. This phenomenon had been spotted in stars but never in a planet of any kind. Free-floating planets are difficult to detect, as they are very faint, but ESO’s up- coming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), operating under the world's darkest skies for astronomy, could change that. Its powerful instru- ments and giant main mirror will enable astronomers to uncover and study more of these lonely planets, helping them to better understand how star-like they are. As co-author and ESO astronomer Amelia Bayo puts it: “The idea that a planetary object can be- have like a star is awe-inspiring and invites us to wonder what worlds beyond our own could be like during their nascent stages.” T his infrared image, taken with ESO’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 dot located exactly at the centre of the frame. [ESO/Meingast et al.] The visible- light image below, 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 ex- actly at the centre of the frame. [ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2] !