UDF SkyWalker V1.0. Black Hole Birth Announcement - Space News. For the first time, astronomers have produced a complete description of a black hole, a concentration of mass so dense that not even light can escape its powerful gravitational pull.
Their precise measurements have allowed them to reconstruct the history of the object from its birth some six million years ago. Using several telescopes, both ground-based and in orbit, the scientists unraveled longstanding mysteries about the object called Cygnus X-1, a famous binary-star system discovered to be strongly emitting X-rays nearly a half-century ago. The system consists of a black hole and a companion star from which the black hole is drawing material. The scientists’ efforts yielded the most accurate measurements ever of the black hole’s mass and spin rate. Solar Nirvana / 6 November 2011.