|
Fairly interesting stuff.
Surprisingly the documentary didn't go into detail that Cygnus X-1 provides the strongest evidence for the existence of an object with an event horizon.
Cygnus X-1 is an X-ray binary. If one of the components was a white dwarf rather than a Black Hole, the X-ray spectrum would have two distinct signatures. One signature would be from the friction of the gas as described in the documentary, the other from the gas colliding into the white dwarf.
The spectrum of Cygnus only reveals X-rays from gas friction, the most likely explanation is that the object is a Black Hole where X-rays from the collision are not observed due to an event horizon.
Regards
Steven.
|