Life Might Survive on a Planet Orbiting a Black Hole — If It Can Stand the Harsh Light

In the 2014 movie Interstellar, astronauts investigate planets orbiting a supermassive black hole as potential homes for human life. A supermassive black hole warps surrounding space-time, according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and at least one of the planets in the movie, called Miller’s planet, experienced time passing at a slowed-down rate. For each hour the astronauts spent on the planet, several years passed outside the black hole’s influence.