Black hole · ~21 M☉

Cygnus X-1 (black hole)

The compact object of Cygnus X-1 — the first widely accepted black hole. A bright X-ray source in Cygnus discovered in 1964, it is a stellar-mass black hole of roughly twenty-one solar masses pulling gas from its blue-supergiant donor star (HD 226868). It was the subject of a famous bet between Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne, which Hawking conceded in 1990.

Highlights

›The first widely accepted black hole, ~21 M☉

Knowledge connections

Associated withStellar-Mass Black Hole
Associated withBlack Hole
Associated withCygnus X-1
Associated withAccretion Disk
Associated withRelativistic Jet
Associated withBlack-Hole Mass Measurement
Associated withCygnus

Sources

Facts on this topic will be cited from these primary and reference sources.

NASANational Aeronautics and Space Administration
Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.
Most NASA-produced imagery is in the public domain; individual items are checked for usage terms before publication.

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Cygnus X-1 (black hole)

Highlights

Classes, physics & objects

Knowledge connections

Sources

Cygnus X-1 (black hole)

Highlights

Classes, physics & objects

Knowledge connections

Sources