If light cannot escape a black hole, could light orbit a black hole, and in theory if you could stand in that spot and look in the direction of the orbital path, could you see your back?

Question

The march 1993 cover of Scientific American magazine inspired me for this question when I was a kid.

In: Physics

Answer 1

Yep. Black holes bend space, and light just goes in whatever space it’s bent. Inside the black hole, all directions point inward. That’s why it looks like light can’t “escape”. Near the edge, you can definitely just see your back. The circumference of the event horizon can be very big though, so you’d appear super far away.