Cygnus X-1 Star System & Black Hole: Wide-field & Artist views

Cygnus X-1 Star System & Black Hole: Wide-field & Artist views

Wide-field view of binary star system Cygnus X-1

Illustration of Cygnus X-1

Artist's impression of Cygnus X-1

Wide-field view of binary star system Cygnus X-1: This ground-based image showing the visible light component of Cygnus X-1 (center), a rich source of X-rays in the constellation of Cygnus, the Swan.

Cygnus X-1 is a black hole about 15 times the mass of the Sun in orbit with a massive blue companion star. Using optical observations of the companion star and its motion around its unseen companion, the team made the most precise determination ever for the mass of Cygnus X-1, of 14.8 times the mass of the Sun. It was likely to have been almost this massive at birth, because of lack of time for it to grow appreciably.

Cygnus X-1 is located near large active regions of star formation in the Milky Way galaxy. Cygnus X-1 is a so-called stellar-mass black hole, a class of black holes that comes from the collapse of a massive star. The black hole pulls material from a massive, blue companion star toward it. This material forms a disk that rotates around the black hole before falling into it or being redirected away from the black hole in the form of powerful jets.

Distance: 6,070 light years

Image 1 Credit: Digital Sky Survey (DSS)/Release Date: Nov. 17, 2011

Image 2 Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss/Release Date: Nov. 17, 2011

Image 3 Credit: NASA, ESA, Martin Kornmesser (ESA/Hubble)/Release Date: Jan. 1, 2002

Image 4 Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)/Release Date: Jan. 1, 2002

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