Chandra Release - November 17, 2011

Visual Description: Cygnus X-1

The graphic features two panels on the stellar-mass black hole Cygnus X-1. On the left, an optical image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows a large field around the black hole, outlined in a red box at the very center. Cygnus X-1 is located near large active regions of star formation in our Milky Way, as pictured in this image that spans some 700 light years across. An artist's illustration on the right depicts what astronomers think is happening within the Cygnus X-1 system. Cygnus X-1 is part of a class of black holes that comes from the collapse of a massive star. The black hole is shown pulling material from a massive, blue companion star toward it. This material forms a disk (colored in bright red and orange) that rotates around the black hole before falling into it or being redirected away from the black hole in the form of thin, powerful jets. The Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes combined to determine the spin, mass, and distance to this black hole more precisely than ever before.