Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have taken a fresh look at one of the strangest known exoplanets, WASP 107b. It is almost as large as Jupiter but has only about a tenth of its mass, so its density is closer to cotton candy than to a normal gas giant. New observations show a gigantic plume of helium stretching to a size almost five times wider than the planet and actually flowing ahead of it along the orbit. In simple terms, the planet is literally chasing its own atmosphere through space while the star steadily blows it away.

Webb’s instruments also revealed water vapour, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and traces of ammonia in the planet’s atmosphere, but almost no methane where theory says there should be plenty. That suggests furious vertical mixing inside this swollen world. Hotter layers likely drag material upward so quickly that methane has no chance to survive. Over millions of years this extreme heating and leakage could strip away a huge part of the envelope and even change what the planet looks like from afar.

For traders the picture is suspiciously familiar. On WASP 107b the atmosphere runs ahead of the planet like profit targets that have already flown away, while the hot star behind plays the role of ruthless market volatility. When the system overheats and everything starts to leak, even a giant planet with fluffy density cannot hold on to its protective shell. In the same way an oversized but very light portfolio, pumped up with leverage, begins to lose capital faster than the owner realises. First the helium goes, then the confidence, and soon the trader is also chasing his own deposit somewhere far behind the price chart.