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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

How a famous black hole makes its brilliant X-rays

Scientists trace the source of the dazzling X-rays emanating from Cygnus X-1, the first recognized black hole.
Artist's illustration of a black hole sucking in material from a star.

The black hole Cygnus X-1 (artist’s impression) drags in material from a blue companion star. Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

The X-rays from an iconic black hole correlate to the jets of matter that shoot out from the black hole’s polar regions, a new space telescope has shown1. This suggests that the mechanisms that produce the radiation and the jets are intimately related.

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Nature 611, 429 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03536-4

References

  1. Krawczynski, H. et al. Science https://doi.org/10.1126/science.add5399 (2022).

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