Tulip and a Black Hole

Black holes are cloaked with mystery. Light cannot escape the gravitational well of a black hole, but we can inspect its surroundings which often betrays its presence. The blue arc like nebula seen in this image is an example. It is 16 light years wide and is the shock front of a powerful beam of energy that originated at the black hole, Cygnus X-1. Cygnus X-1 is a stellar black hole, meaning it is the remains of a large star that has collapsed. Studies show the black hole to have the mass of 14 suns, which is one of the most massive stellar black holes known of to date. It is orbiting a large blue supergiant star every 5.6 days at a radius of about .2 au, or 1/5 the distance of the earth to the Sun. (The companion star can be seen in this image as the largest star located 1/2 way between the arc and the bottom of the image) Due to their proximity, the black holes gravity is slowly consuming its companion star, siphoning matter onto an accretion disk that whirls around the black hole’s event horizon (The point of no return). The black holes gravity is causing the companion star to bulge toward it in the shape of an egg, with the small end pointed toward the black hole. There is no smooth edge to this egg. Instead hot gas flows away from the companion star towards the black hole, forming the accretion disk which orbits the black hole. Friction heats the gas to millions of degrees resulting in synchrotron radiation in the form of x-rays. It is this radiation flowing out in jets, perpendicular to the accretion disk, that is causing the shock wave seen in this image. This accretion disk is one of the most rapidly spinning disks known. The gas located at the event horizon is spinning 800 times per second, which equates to a speed of 3/4 the speed of light. Blobs of the gas in the disk will break off and spin down into the black hole, causing erratic bursts of energy. Note that there are several smaller arcs in this image, which may possibly relate to separate energy fronts flowing from Cygnus X-1.

The flowery neighbor in this image, the Tulip Nebula, lies 6000 light years away and is being illuminated and ionized by the central stars in its core.

Exploring this image and reading about what I have seen has been an adventure and helps me relate to the words of Edwin Hubble,

“Equipped with his 5 senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science” Edwin Powell Hubble

References:

Russell et al., Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc, 376, 1341-1349, 2007

NASA’s Chandra Add to Black Hole Birth Announcement,

https://chandra.si.edu/press/11_releases/press_111711.html

Death Spiral around a black hole yields tantalizing evidence of an event horizon

https://hubblesite.org/news/news-releases

Scope: AT 16” RC

Mount: AP 1600

OIII:Ha:LRGB 300:255:110:110:140:140 (Total 17.6 hrs)