Overview
- The result comes from an arXiv preprint by Barry McKernan and colleagues that appeared May 31–June 1 and uses magnetized AGN-disk models to set temperatures and gas profiles for the outer dust torus.
- The models show dust grains in AGN outer tori can survive, stick together, and form planetesimals by processes similar to those in star disks, but acting in a much denser, stronger-gravity environment.
- Simulations predict rapid accretion that can produce many super-Jovian planets and, in some cases, objects that grow to stellar masses through continued gas and dust capture.
- The authors estimate extremely large populations—potentially tens of millions of planetary-mass objects per active disk—and also predict exotic, dust-dominated bodies unlike planets around normal stars.
- These conclusions are theoretical and unconfirmed, and the paper calls for targeted, high-resolution multiwavelength observations to isolate cool dust in AGN tori and test whether these predicted populations exist.