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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 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. Cygnus X-1 is a well-known black hole and galactic X-ray source in the constellation Cygnus. It was discovered in 1964 during a rocket flight and is one of the strongest X-ray sources seen from Earth. Cygnus X-1 was the first X-ray source widely accepted to be a black hole candidate and it remains among the most studied astronomical objects in its class. It is now estimated to have a mass about 14.8 times the mass of the Sun and has been shown to be too compact to be any known kind of normal star or other likely object besides a black hole. Release date November 17, 2011.
