How to Use accretion disk in a Sentence

accretion disk

noun
Definition of accretion disknext
  • The accretion disk is the dark area at the narrowest point of the wing.
    — Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 16 Dec. 2021
  • The particles are in a thin accretion disk, where the swirling pace nears the speed of light.
    — Ashley Strickland, CNN, 25 Sep. 2019
  • This build up of matter on the edge of black holes are known as accretion disks.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 21 Sep. 2018
  • Next up, there's the cloud of dust and gas itself, called an accretion disk.
    — Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 5 Apr. 2019
  • Some of that light hits the accretion disk, which absorbs it, heats up, and then emits light of its own.
    — Alison Klesman, Discover Magazine, 5 Feb. 2019
  • There's clearly a lot left to learn about black holes and their accretion disks.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 10 June 2019
  • The dust and gas in a black hole’s accretion disk don’t help with detection.
    — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 6 Feb. 2024
  • Because of this, any change in the accretion disk will later be echoed within the torus.
    — Quanta Magazine, 21 Nov. 2018
  • Streams of gas blowing from the star are captured by the black hole and spun into an accretion disk.
    — Discover Magazine, 9 Apr. 2019
  • In the case of a star and a black hole, matter from the star forms a ring of material called an accretion disk around the black hole.
    — Quanta Magazine, 2 Mar. 2016
  • The black hole sucks matter from the giant star, forming a swirling accretion disk that drains into the black hole.
    — Popular Science, 24 Aug. 2020
  • The simulated black hole yanked and pulled the very fabric of space around it, which caused the accretion disk to wobble.
    — Matt Hrodey, Discover Magazine, 25 Sep. 2023
  • The body could be a small galaxy in the disk of a large galaxy or a planet in an accretion disk [the dusty structure around a newborn star].
    — Corey S. Powell, Scientific American, 6 Oct. 2015
  • The rest makes a tasty meal for the black hole, which pulls the material into its hot, glowing accretion disk made of gas.
    — Ashley Strickland, CNN, 26 Sep. 2019
  • This generates an accretion disk, a glowing structure at the edges of a black hole.
    — Jack Knudson, Discover Magazine, 17 Jan. 2024
  • The team researched the gas in the accretion disk, a rotating ring of matter that emits x-rays and visible light to help show where the black hole is, to see the gas’s movement.
    — Tim Newcomb, Popular Mechanics, 14 July 2022
  • As the material from the accretion disk falls into the black hole, jets of energy form along the axis of the merger.
    — Quanta Magazine, 2 Mar. 2016
  • In these cases, matter from the star falls into its ultradense partner, and the swirling gas forms what's known as an accretion disk around the black hole's maw.
    — National Geographic, 4 Apr. 2018
  • Black holes feed off of material from the accretion disk, pulling spirals of gas inside that heat up.
    — Ashley Strickland, CNN, 12 June 2020
  • The researchers discovered that the star is forming from the center of a rotating disk of gas and dust, called an accretion disk, just like smaller stars such as the sun.
    — Jay Bennett, Popular Mechanics, 21 Aug. 2016
  • However, the dense plasma that surrounds them, known as an accretion disk, does.
    — Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 10 May 2022
  • These accretion disks then squeeze energy and particles out their poles like toothpaste from a tube, at nearly the speed of light.
    — Dennis Overbye, New York Times, 7 Apr. 2020
  • On a scale of several weeks, strong magnetic fields should stir the accretion disk and produce hotter spots that then orbit the black hole.
    — Davide Castelvecchi, Scientific American, 23 Sep. 2020
  • The radio waves’ voyage began when they were first emitted from particles in the black hole’s accretion disk.
    — Katie McCormick, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 Nov. 2022
  • Black shadows near these regions are accretion disks of swirling gas and dust — some of which could be in the process of creating planetary systems.
    — Katrina Miller, New York Times, 12 July 2023
  • More precisely, some change in their accretion disk—that swirl of hot matter that encircles the feeding black hole—is the true culprit.
    — Shannon Hall, Scientific American, 12 Dec. 2019
  • The emitted X-rays can sometimes reflect off the accretion disk, creating ‘echoes’ of the initial emission.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 2 May 2022
  • Such wobbly accretion disks might also surround the much smaller stellar black holes, which are typically around three to 20 times the mass of the sun.
    — Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 28 Sep. 2023
  • This in turn can form a rotating ring of matter (aka an accretion disk) around the black hole that emits powerful X-rays and visible light.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 12 Oct. 2020
  • To reconstruct the immediate environment around a black hole, Kara turns to the X-ray light given off by the accretion disk.
    — Michael Greshko, Quanta Magazine, 12 Feb. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'accretion disk.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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