Not just killers, but creators: Black holes could birth planets and even stars, study finds

Planets form around stars and some also roam around in the universe untethered. We have known that they are shaped from the planetary disk where planet of material is available for their formation. A study has now claimed that they could even be birthed in the most unlikely location - around black holes.

Black holes have such strong gravitational force that not even light can escape it. They pull all matter around them into them. But surprisingly, they are not just killers, but are also creators, according to new research published in The Astrophysical Journal on June 29, 2026.

The study claims that the dusty regions around supermassive black holes can become the catalyst for planet formation, similar to how they form around stars. The focus of the study were supermassive black holes that are actively feeding on the gas and dust around them. Known as active galactic nuclei, or AGNs, they can be found at the centre of almost every galaxy.

When they pull in matter, a huge amount of gas and dust start starts collecting around it. This matter swirls around the black hole creating a super hot accretion disk, just like the planetary disks around stars from which planets are born. Astrophysicist Barry McKernan, co-author of the study, said they found that at least theoretically, it is possible that the same processes could form planets around black holes, since the same rules of physics should apply.

If true, this means that black holes could also have planets around them. And not just a few, but one black hole could have millions of planets in its vicinity. Simulations showed that these planets would be as large as Jupiter right after their birth, and grow up to become even more humongous. This is because black holes could be several million times bigger than the Sun.

The process of planet formation will also be the same. Dust grains would accumulate in increasingly dense concentrations, and collide with each other. The solid particles would gradually coalesce together, thus creating baby planets. Some of them might outgrow the planet stage and end up becoming brown dwarfs, or failed stars. However, it is also possible that some of them become actual stars.

But since black holes are power gravitationally, they could tug onto some of these planets, thus killing them and creating more dust. Despite this, there could be millions or billions of planets. A single episode of an active galactic nucleus burst is typically about 2 million years long , with one black hole witnessing several such episodes. Thus, over billions of years, many planets could be born.