My confusion is: if the black hole is so massive (and, if I understand correctly, I realise that "massive" in this case refers more to density than physical size), why wouldn't this star have been sucked completely into the black hole? I'm having trouble understanding how the gravitational pull of such a massive black hole wouldn't extend out that far to actually swallow the star? 17 light-hours seems like barely spitting distance!
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I'm not looking for a crash course in astronomy physics (I don't think...) and I doubt I have enough knowledge to understand an in-depth answer. But I guess I wish the explanation had addressed this question for those of us who have too little knowledge to know the answer and too much knowledge not to ask the question.
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Thanks for any help in understanding this.
Pegasus