NASA telescope captures spectacular set of rings around black hole

This throwback picture features a spectacular set of rings around a stellar-mass black hole in V404 Cygni, a binary system located about 8,000 light-years away.

Captured using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, these giant rings reveal information about the black hole, its companion, and the intervening dust clouds in our galaxy.

In this composite image, X-rays from Chandra (light blue) were combined with optical data from the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii that show the stars in the field of view. The image contains eight separate concentric rings. Each ring is created by X-rays from V404 Cygni flares observed in 2015 that reflect off different dust clouds.

The high-energy rings are formed by light echoes, a phenomenon similar to echoes on Earth from sound waves bouncing off hard surfaces.

According to NASA, the black hole is actively pulling material away from a companion star into a disk around the invisible object. This material glows in X-rays, hence these systems are referred to as "X-ray binaries."

📸 Image of the day: A spectacular set of rings around a black hole, captured using the @chandraxray observatory. The black hole is part of a binary system called V404 Cygni, located about 7,800 light years away from Earth. 🌌Learn more HERE>> https://t.co/6khYnkiKYu

— NASA Marshall (@NASA_Marshall) June 25, 2022