Is Cygnus X-1 in our galaxy?

Is Cygnus X-1 in our galaxy?

Cygnus X-1 is located inside the Milky Way about 7,200 light years from Earth. It comprises what we now know to be a black hole in a 5.6-day orbit around a massive supergiant companion star.

Why is Cygnus X-1 a black hole?

Its mass is too great to be a white dwarf or a neutron star, though, so it must be a black hole — the corpse of a star that once resembled the supergiant. The system is called Cygnus X-1, indicating it was the first source of X-rays discovered in the constellation Cygnus.

Is Cygnus X-1 a black hole?

One of the component stars of the binary X-ray system Cygnus X-1 is a black hole. Discovered in 1971 in the constellation Cygnus, this binary consists of a blue supergiant and an invisible companion 14.8 times the mass of the Sun that revolve about one another in a period of 5.6 days.

Can we see Cygnus X-1?

A black hole is basically an object so massive that its escape velocity has exceeded the speed of light. As a consequence, no light can escape the object, leading to many strange space and time related phenomena. From an observational standpoint, Cygnus X-1 is essentially invisible to the naked eye.