Doood. How about a junkyard planet that is so littered with broken droids it looks like Coruscant from space, but like super ghetto. And because of Kotor we know Star Wars has had droids for ages. So this planet starts to become self aware in patches from an evolving matrix of AI's, and your scientist is discovering that even thought individually droids have large databanks, as a collective their thinking over a large area is surprisingly rudimentary, like an infant, which has subverted expectations from the scientific community. He wonders if the patches of intelligence on the planet surface will combine into a single sentient being, who is either really dumb, and will grow to be super intelligent, or if the merging will result in a super intelligent sentient planet. But as this event seems to be imminent he is called away because of the super massive black hole thing.
I should state that a a non-whimsical Star Wars story focused on a scientist studying a space anomaly feels more like the focus of a Star Trek story, but what to I know.
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.