In conceptual images of accretion disks entering black holes, why does the matter always enter in at one point

Question

What would prevent a star from getting sucked in from all around rather than being attracted to just one small part of the black hole?

example:
http://www.thebestlinks.com/images/thumb/f/f6/180px-Accretion_disk.jpg

Answer 1

Stars don't just fall straight into black holes, they start by orbiting them. As the orbit decays and the star gets closer, the black hole's gravity strips material off the star and it starts to fall in. This is called Roche Lobe Overflow and it's what causes that tapering stream you see in the picture.

The infalling material still has angular momentum, so instead of falling straight in it goes into a tight orbit around the black hole, forming the accretion disk.

Most of the material eventualy falls into the black hole, but some of it's ejected at the poles (a black holes spins on its axis) to form the jets shown in the picture.

Answer 2

sit in your bath tub and let the water out and watch the variables when you alter the contents of what is vortexing down the drain do it with varying sizes of and color of dry laundry sop and see the action. I'm no whiz but we're flying with 34,000 miles an hour here in the milky-way Galaxy and still there is a red hot war fueled here and it is a black hole sucking thing that i wish would wander off in to deep space soon

Answer 3

If a miniature black hole[1cm diameter]crashed into a star it would sink to the center and devour it from the inside!

Answer 4

A black hole is an object predicted by general relativity with a gravitational field so strong that nothing can escape it — not even light.

Answer 5

there is sooooooooooooooo much density in that small ball typed in middle. obviously, it have greater gravity... That disc are attracted substances towards it.

Answer 6

maybe its like water going down the drain. has to start somewhere

Answer 7

wow. that is a VERY good question.

*watching...*