Q. What is Cygnus X-1, recently seen in the news?
Answer:
Black hole
Notes: Astro Sat, India's inaugural multi-wavelength astronomy mission, successfully measured the X-ray polarization of the Cygnus X-1 black hole system. Discovered four decades ago, Cygnus X-1 is among the first confirmed black hole systems in our galaxy. The black hole is 20 times the Sun's mass, with a companion supergiant star (40 times more massive) in a binary system. Located 400 times farther than Earth-Sun distance, the gravitational pull forms an accretion disk, generating soft X-rays.