Artist's Illustration of Cygnus X-1 (IMAGE)

Chandra X-ray Center

Artist's Illustration of Cygnus X-1

Caption

Cygnus X-1 is located near large active regions of star formation in the Milky Way. An artist's illustration depicts what astronomers think is happening within the Cygnus X-1 system. 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 (shown in 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 powerful jets.

Credit

NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

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