Facts about Black Hole Cygnus X-1

1. 05

   Located about 6,000 light-years from Earth, Cygnus X-1 is one of the brightest X-ray sources in the sky.

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2. 04

   A famous 1974 scientific wager between Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne used Cygnus X-1 as the subject, with Hawking betting it was not a black hole.

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3. 03

   Discovered in 1964 during a rocket flight, Cygnus X-1 was among the earliest known X-ray sources detected beyond our solar system.

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4. 02

   The companion star in the Cygnus X-1 system is a massive blue supergiant known as HDE 226868, whose strong stellar winds feed material into the black hole.

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5. 01

   Cygnus X-1 was one of the first strong candidates for a black hole and remains one of the most studied X-ray binary systems in the galaxy.

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