Scientists have created superheated rings of plasma that mimic the shining accretion disks that rotate around black holes at incredible speeds. The lab experiments could shed light on how black holes grow.
An accretion disk is a ring of superheated plasma, or ionized gas, that spins around a black hole's event horizon, the boundary beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape. The ring's superfast rotation creates centrifugal force that pushes the plasma outward, counteracting the black hole's gravity and keeping the plasma in a stable orbit. The plasma is made up of matter that gets pulled toward the black hole's boundary before being superheated by its intense gravitational force.
