I get the explanation that they have gravity and things are attracted, but why is it in a ring rather than a sphere? why do things from one AXIS get attracted but not from other?
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If something falls towards the black hole, chances are, it will not hit the black hole directly. It will likely miss, because it has some sideways velocity to begin with, and gravity alone will not counteract it. Basically, the object has an initial angular momentum around the black hole, and angular momentum is conserved.
So what happens to all the stuff that fall towards the black hole and miss? They collide with each other. This tends to slow down the object and capture it in an orbit around the black hole. Now you have all this stuff orbiting the black hole. But they are all in random directions, so they still collide with each other. Eventually they shave off velocity from each other and coalesce.
But, all the angular momentum from all the falling stuff is still conserved. If they average out precisely, then they cancel out completely. But chances are, they add up to a non-zero value. Which means a flat disk.
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