A blanet is a member of a hypothetical class of exoplanets that directly orbit black holes. ^[1]

Blanets are fundamentally similar to other planets; they have enough mass to be rounded by their own gravity, but are not massive enough to start thermonuclear fusion and become stars. In 2019, a team of astronomers and exoplanetologists showed that there is a safe zone around a supermassive black hole that could harbor thousands of blanets in orbit around it. ^{[2] [3]}

Etymology

The team led by Keiichi Wada of Kagoshima University in Japan has given this name to black hole planets. ^[4] The word is a portmanteau of black hole and planet.

Formation

Blanets are suspected to form in the accretion disk that orbits a sufficiently large black hole. ^{[3] [5]}

In fiction

In the episodes The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit (both 2006) of television series Doctor Who, the plot of the episode takes place on the titular “impossible planet”, a barren blanet called Krop Tor orbiting a black hole called K37 Gem 5. In Interstellar (2014), two of the 3 terrestrial planets orbiting supermassive black hole Garguantua are proper blanets. The other one orbits a main-sequence star named Pantagruel.

References