Sean Raymond is an American astrophysicist who works at the Bordeaux Astrophysical Laboratory, France. He study the formation and evolution of planetary systems. Here is a small conversation between me and Planetary Scientist Sean Raymond on Blanets, which are hypothetical exoplanets orbiting around super-massive black holes.
Maanvinder– How Blanets could form around a super-massive black hole?
Sean Raymond– According to a new idea by Wada and colleagues, “blanets” would form from dust and gas orbiting super-massive black holes. This dust and gas would likely have originated from either material attracted by the black hole, or maybe from stars and perhaps other planets that were torn to pieces by the black hole’s gravity.
Maanvinder– How far should a Blanet orbit a black hole?
Sean Raymond– In the scenario of Wada and colleagues, blanets would form about 5-20 light years away from super-massive black holes.
Maanvinder– Do black holes have Goldilocks zones or habitable zones?
Sean Raymond- Strictly speaking — black holes don’t emit any radiation, so they would not have “habitable zones”. However, super-massive black holes have accretion disks that emit radiation and there can be a Goldilocks region around them.
Maanvinder– How big Blanets would be?
Sean Raymond– According to Wada’s model, they would tend to be a bit more massive than Earth, and up to Jupiter-size.
Maanvinder– Would they be gas giants or terrestrial?
Sean Raymond– Probably both can exist.
Astronomia Oggi 