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If the black hole forms separately and then captures a star with an orbiting planet into an orbit, why could the planet not continue to just orbit the orbiting
by CalChris 4y ago
If the black hole forms separately and then captures a star with an orbiting planet into an orbit, why could the planet not continue to just orbit the orbiting star? Wouldn't this be like a planet orbiting a binary star? There will be exceptional cases but it's not clear to me that the planet has to be consumed by the black hole without consuming the star.
- pdonis 4y agoA planet much closer to the star than the black hole is could possibly continue in an orbit fairly close to its previous one. But remember that the black hole is almost 10 times as massive as the star; that means that the hole is going to strongly perturb the orbits of any planets orbiting the star that weren't very close to the star. That doesn't necessarily mean the hole will consume such planets, just that their orbits will be very different than they were before, and might well become orbits around the hole, not the star.