Thinking Ahead

class="introduction" class="summary" title="Summary" class="further-exploration" title="For Further Exploration" class="group-activities" title="Collaborative Group Activities" class="review-questions" title="Review Questions" class="thought-questions" title="Thought Questions" class="figuring-for-yourself" title="Figuring for Yourself"

A Stellar Mass Black Hole. The image on the left, labeled “Optical”, is a visible light image of a region of the constellation Cygnus. At the center a red box indicates the position of the X-ray source Cygnus X-1. The figure on the left, labeled “Illustration”, is a rendering of the black hole and its blue companion star. The blue star is at right, with material streaming away from the surface toward the red and orange colored disk surrounding the black hole. Jets of material, oriented perpendicular to the disk, are moving away from the black hole located at the center of the disk.

For most of the twentieth century, black holes seemed the stuff of science fiction, portrayed either as monster vacuum cleaners consuming all the matter around them or as tunnels from one universe to another. But the truth about black holes is almost stranger than fiction. As we continue our voyage into the universe, we will discover that black holes are the key to explaining many mysterious and remarkable objects—including collapsed stars and the active centers of giant galaxies.

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