A free-floating planet has been seen devouring astonishing amounts of matter, hinting that stars and planets are more alike than we thought

Astronomers say the rogue planet is devouring dust and gas at six billion tonnes per second - behaviour usually seen in stars.

A population of free-floating planets is known from gravitational microlensing surveys. None have a directly measured mass, owing to a degeneracy with the distance, but the population statistics indicate that many are less massive than Jupiter. We report…