Recent observations made by an international team of astronomers, for the first black hole observed in 1964, known as the "Cygnus-X-1" hole, revealed new details about this controversial hole, including that it is larger than previously thought. .

The press release issued by the International Center for Radio Astronomy (Research) says that the new observations included in the results of the research published in the journal Science in its February 18 issue will push astronomers to Question what they know about the most mysterious things in the universe.

The first black hole

The X-1 system is an X-ray source found in the constellation Hen, and it was discovered in 1964 by satellites that recorded X-rays coming from outer space, especially those from this star that is not seen by optical telescopes, although it is located in our galaxy.

Perhaps the question that most baffled astronomers at the time was "Was the star of Hen X-1 the first black hole discovered?"

The chicken hole X-1 was the subject of a friendly bet between two famous scientists, Stephen Hawking and the astronomer Cape Thorn. After the star of the chicken was classified as a black hole for the first time, Hawking bet in 1974 that it is not a black hole, while Thorne said it is a black hole, but Hawking 1990 gave up the bet.

Stephen Hawking lost his bet to Cape Thorne, and X-1 proved to be a black hole (social networking sites)

Farther than thought

In order to monitor the black hole in the constellation Hen, the international team used a 10-dish radio telescope spread across the United States, along with smart technology to measure distances in space.

This wide distribution of the plates allows astronomers to eliminate the influence of the Earth's movement around the sun to measure the distance of distant objects.

According to the center's statement, astronomer James Miller Jones from Curtin University, who led the study, said, "The width of the object itself from different locations allows astronomers to calculate the distance by measuring the distance that the object is moving in relation to the background." .

Jones added, "Over a period of 6 days, the researchers observed the entire orbit of the black hole, and relied on observations taken from the same system using the same telescope group for 2011, and this method and our new measurements show that the system is farther away than previously thought, with a much larger black hole." The new measurements also found that it was 20% away from Earth than previously thought based on the original 1964 results.

According to the center's statement, although the X-1 hole is still one of the closest known black holes, scientists have found in their new observations that it is farther than previous calculations indicated, as it is 7200 light-years away, which is the distance light travels in a year, i.e. farther away. With a distance of 9.5 trillion kilometers from Earth.

Bigger and faster

In addition, the research shows that the system known as (Cygnus X-1) contains the largest stellar-mass black hole ever, detected without the use of gravitational waves.

Jones says that the chicken hole X-1 is the largest known black hole in the constellation of the Milky Way, and among the strongest sources of X-rays that can be seen from the planet.

He added, "The black hole in the system (Cygnus X-1) began its life as a star with a mass of about 60 times the mass of the sun and collapsed tens of thousands of years ago," and that "it orbits around its giant star every 5 and a half days at a distance of one-fifth the distance between the earth and the sun."

According to new observations, the mass of the black hole is 21 times greater than the mass of our sun, which is about 50% more than the mass that scientists had previously thought.

About the speed of the black hole, Chinese researcher Yuishan Zhao, co-author of the paper says, "By using updated measurements of the mass of the black hole and the distance separating it from the Earth, I was able to ensure that (Cygnus X-1) rotates at an amazing speed very close to the speed of light and faster than any black hole. else".