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☉
Classes, physics & objects
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
The primary and reference sources this topic draws on.
- 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.