this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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My point isn't that a black hole is unique or anything else of the sort. Heavy objects try to suck in lighter objects around them. The reason I was saying I would only sometimes describe it as being "sucked in" was because that suggests being significantly pulled towards the object, whereas if it is a fairly stable orbit or the object's trajectory being slightly bent, I wouldn't describe it as such (black hole or otherwise). Even with a gas giant, It wouldn't feel wrong to say it sucks in nearby debris.
Ok, then it's not the condition of "being a black hole" what makes it "suck in", but its mass, which can be varied (according to Stephen Hawking, the theoretical minimum mass to form a black hole would be 0.01 mg)
Saying that a black hole "sucks in" in that sense is as valid as saying that any object with mass (like a tenis ball) "sucks in". But I don't think that's what the article was referring to as a "myth", the myth the article targets is the suck power being a particular characteristic of black holes.