NASA says an unusual celestial object spotted near the heart of our galaxy is actually the loneliest young star ever recorded – and it's in the middle of a growth spurt.

The "rogue" star, officially named CX330, has grown significantly since it was first detected seven years ago, according to data from several NASA telescopes. NASA says the fledgling star is not near any star-forming region, and is in the middle of stage called outbursting, which involves firing off superheated jets to warm the gas and dust floating around it. The outbursting phase is also when planets typically form, due to the power of the star's outbursts.

X-ray readings from the object were first detected in 2009, before it was identified as a star. Researchers later compared data from multiple NASA telescopes to determine that the object was also emitting visible light, and that the brightness of that light grew by hundreds of times from 2007 to 2010. The star was still outbursting when it was last observed, in August 2015.

The object itself is thought to be less than 1 million years old, which makes it relatively young by star standards.

The researchers who identified the star published their findings in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "In this paper we rule out several scenarios for the cause of the outburst… and interpret this transient as the result of a Young Stellar Object," the paper's authors wrote. They offer a few possibilities for the star's origins, although they admit it "does not fit neatly into other existing categories."

"Young stars usually form and feed from their surrounding gas and dust-rich regions in star-forming clouds," NASA said in a post on its website. "By contrast, the region of star formation closest to CX330 is over a thousand light-years away."

Study lead author Chris Britt told NASA the star might have migrated to its position from a star-forming region, or it could be in the midst of a pack of low-mass stars that have not yet been detected.

NASA says the phenomenon is extremely rare, with only about 10 recorded cases of young stellar objects in the universe.