section_path: Properties and structure/Innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO)
section_name: Innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO)
paragraph_text: Innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO)
  
  In Newtonian gravity, test particles can stably orbit at arbitrary distances from a central object. In general relativity, however, there exists an innermost stable circular orbit (often called the ISCO), for which any infinitesimal inward perturbations to a circular orbit will lead to spiraling into the black hole, and any outward perturbations will, depending on the energy, result in spiraling in, stably orbiting between apastron and periastron, or escaping to infinity. The location of the ISCO depends on the spin of the black hole, in the case of a Schwarzschild black hole (spin zero) is:
  
  and decreases with increasing black hole spin for particles orbiting in the same direction as the spin.