Millions of planets might form around supermassive black holes

 

Massive amounts of dust swirl around active nuclei at the centres of galaxies, and these discs could give rise to vast numbers of rocky planets, some even the size of stars. Image courtesy of NASA and M. Weiss/Chandra X-ray Center

Joel Kontinen

What does black holes done for planets? According to a recently published study, they form planets around supermassive black holes.

The active centres of galaxies might be regions of extraordinary planet formation, where millions of worlds are born.

Most galaxies in the universe, such as our own Milky Way, host a supermassive black hole at their centre. Most of the time, these black holes are quiescent, as there is no matter falling into them. But occasionally they become active and consume huge amounts of dust and gas, perhaps from a merger with another according to evolution, becoming an active galactic nucleus for millions of years.

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By Jonathan O’Callaghan 2026 Millions of planets might form around supermassive black holes | New Scientist 28 May

Scientists identify 10,000 'impossible' exoplanet candidates, potentially tripling the number of known alien worlds

 

Image courtesy of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Joel Kontinen

How many exoplanets are there? A new survey put the number at over 10,000.  But how many of them harbour life is difficult question, as only the creator can create life-giving minerals and other elements to a planet.

Since the first alien planet was spotted in 1995, the number of exoplanet discoveries has slowly risen in line with new technologies, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, which are better equipped to spot these weird alien worlds. In September 2025, astronomers revealed that the number of confirmed exoplanets had surpassed 6,000, and nearly 300 have been added to the list since then, according to NASA.

But in a new study uploaded April 20 to the preprint server arXiv, researchers report that they've uncovered an astonishing 11,554 exoplanet candidates at once. If all of them can be confirmed, it would bring the total number of exoplanets to nearly 18,000, which is almost triple the current total.

Using a machine learning algorithm, the team analyzed the light curves of precisely 83,717,159 stars captured by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a car-sized space telescope that has been circling Earth since 2018. By looking for subtle dips in the stars' brightness, astronomers can tell when a planet has likely passed in front of, or transited, its home star.

This revealed more than 11,000 exoplanet candidates, of which 10,052 had never been seen before. Around 87% of the candidates were spotted transiting twice or more, allowing the researchers to calculate the planets' orbital periods, which range from 0.5 to 27 days, according to StellarCatalog.com.

Using one of the 21-foot (6.5 meters) Magellan telescopes in Chile's Atacama Desert, the team identified a "hot Jupiter" exoplanet, dubbed TIC 183374187 b, that orbits a star around 3,950 light-years from Earth — right where the algorithm predicted.

TESS was specifically designed to detect transiting objects, and it has already discovered 882 confirmed exoplanets — roughly 14% of the current total — so it may seem strange that no one has seen most of the new candidates until now.

Most researchers prioritize analyzing the light curves of the brightest stars in the TESS dataset, because transit events for these stars are much more noticeable and easier to confirm. But there are many more faint stars that end up being captured in the telescope's wide-field photos.

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 Harry Baker 2026 Scientists identify 10,000 'impossible' exoplanet candidates, potentially tripling the number of known alien worlds | Live Science 2 May

 

 

 

 

 

 

10,000 new planets found hidden in NASA telescope data

 

An artist’s impression of a star with two planets transiting across it. Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI).

Joel Kontinen

How many planets are there? A recent survey says that there might be some 10, 000. This is according to a NASA research. But we do now know how many can harbour life, as only God can give  it.

Astronomers have identified more than 10,000 candidate planets in data from a NASA telescope, the most ever found in a single life.

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was launched in 2018. It is tasked with looking at stars across the sky for planets in orbit, known as exoplanets. It identifies these exoplanets by looking for brief dips in the brightness of the light reaching Earth from each star – a sign that an exoplanet orbiting the star has passed in front of it.

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 Jonathan O’Callaghan 2026 10,000 new planets found hidden in NASA telescope data | New Scientist 27 April 

Earth may have formed from two separate rings around the sun

 

Models suggest something is wrong with our picture of the early solar system. Image courtesy of Panther Media Global / Alamy.

Joel Kontinen

According to evolutionary story, our solar system’s rocky planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars – may have formed from two rings around the young sun, rather than a single disc.

The inner solar system may have formed differently from how scientist thought must have. For decades, researchers have thought that according to evolution, the rocky planets formed from a single disc of dust and debris in the early solar system, but new simulations indicate there might have been two separate discs of material.

Models featuring a single disc or ring of material around the young sun tend to be unable to recreate several features of the solar system as we observe it. For one, Earth seems to be made of two different kinds of rocks, which wouldn’t make sense if they all came from the same ring.

Also, single-ring models tend to end up with Mercury and Mars too big, Venus and Earth too close together and the compositions of Earth and Mars too similar.

The real history of the planets can be read from the book of Genesis, in which God made the planets and stars at one go.

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Leah Crane 2026 Earth may have formed from two separate rings around the sun | New Scientist 24 March 

Venus could have be rocked by thousands of quakes every year

 Image courtesy of NASA/JPL

Joel Kontinen

Venus is so close to the sun, so that could be the centre of earthquakes each year, It could have more than 17,000 venusquakes a year.

Far away planets like Pluto and their moons have lava and vents and to things like cold freezes. But if God made the planets in one instant, this could be normal.

There could be thousands of quakes on Venus each year, and researchers might be able to detect them using balloons floating high above the planet’s surface.

Recent observations of volcanic features on Venus, such as vents and lava streams, have shown the planet is much more geologically active than we thought. This makes it more likely that there is also seismic activity, or quakes, on Venus.

By Alex Wilkins 2024. Venus could be rocked by thousands of quakes every year | New Scientist 18 September