Models Show Millions of Planets May Form Around Supermassive Black Holes

3 articles · Updated · New Scientist · May 27

A new model of a typical active galactic nucleus suggests its dust-and-gas disc could spawn millions of planets around a central supermassive black hole.
Dozens of light years wide and far dustier than protoplanetary discs around young stars, those discs would let material clump rapidly into unusually large worlds.
Some of the resulting bodies could become Jupiter-size rocky planets or larger, while the biggest might ignite fusion as rock-rich “alien stars” or collapse into intermediate-mass black holes.
Repeated interactions would eject many planets into the host galaxy or send them into the black hole, but survivors might be found through microlensing or by explaining the flickering seen in some active galactic nuclei.
The work points to active phases of galactic centers—triggered when supermassive black holes feed on infalling gas and dust—as potentially major, previously underexplored sites of planet formation.

Could planets born in galactic chaos really grow into rocky stars or even collapse into new black holes?

Is the mysterious flickering from galactic centers the ghost-like trace of countless 'blanets' we have yet to discover?

With its launch just months away, will the Roman telescope finally confirm planets orbiting the galaxy's most monstrous black holes?