JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Japan's Suzaku satellite shows how all bets are off around Cygnus X-1

An artist's illustration depicts what astronomers think is happening within the Cygnus X-1 system. This is a so-called stellar-mass black hole, a class of phenomena arising from the collapse of a gigantic star. The black hole pulls material from a massive blue companion star toward it. This material forms a disk (shown in red and orange) that rotates around the black hole before falling into it or being redirected away from the black hole in the form of powerful jets. | NASA/CXC/M.WEISS

By Rowan Hooper

May 12, 2013

This month, the Vermillion bird of the South — which is currently flying 550 km above Earth — meets an astronomical swan some 6,000 light-years away.

In Eastern mythology, the Vermillion bird of the South represents fire — it is a spirit creature renowned for its elegance and power. Its Japanese name, Suzaku, is also that of an X-ray-detecting satellite launched by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency in 2005.

Now Suzaku's eyes have been trained on one of the most famous objects in the galaxy — the black hole in the constellation Cygnus (meaning "Swan"), which is also sometimes known as the Northern Cross.

Japan's Suzaku satellite shows how all bets are off around Cygnus X-1

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