A team of scientists is astounded to have discovered that bright and turbulent regions of galaxies — called active galactic nuclei, which are powered by feeding supermassive black hole engines — could be the birthplace of millions of planets. And these regions are brilliant. They often outshine the combined light of every star in their wider home galaxy.
Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) occur when supermassive black holes are surrounded by vast amounts of gas and dust that swirl around them in flattened, platter-shaped clouds called accretion disks. These accretion disks gradually feed some matter to the black hole. Meanwhile, other matter is channeled to the poles of the black hole, from where it is blasted away as high-energy plasma jets travelling at near-light speeds. The immense gravity of the central supermassive black holes, which have masses of millions or even billions of times that of the sun, generates intense friction in the gas and dust within accretion disks, causing them to glow brightly across the electromagnetic spectrum.
