Black Holes in Star Systems Slide 17 of 24

This slide shows an artist's rendition of a black hole in close orbit with an ordinary companion star (very much like our sun). The strong gravitational field of the black hole is sucking matter from the ordinary star into the black hole. As it falls into the black hole it swirls around, exactly like water going down a drain. This swirling motion in turn causes the matter outside the black hole to emit radiation (infrared light) which we can detect from Earth.

---