A team of researchers used the balloon-borne XL-Calibur telescope to capture the most detailed polarized X-ray measurements yet from the black hole Cygnus X-1. These observations reveal new clues about how superheated material swirls, stretches, and glows as it falls toward the black hole’s center.
An international team of physicists, including researchers from Washington University in St. Louis, has gathered new data that helps explain how material falls into black holes and how these extreme environments release enormous amounts of light and energy.
The group used a balloon-borne telescope named XL-Calibur to observe Cygnus X-1, a well-known black hole located about 7,000 light-years from Earth. “The observations we made will be used by scientists to test increasingly realistic, state-of-the-art computer simulations of physical processes close to the black hole,” said Henric Krawczynski, the Wilfred R. and Ann Lee Konneker Distinguished Professor in Physics and a fellow at WashU’s McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences.
How XL-Calibur Tracks Polarized X-Ray Light
XL-Calibur is designed to measure light polarization, which refers to the direction in which electromagnetic vibrations occur. Tracking this direction helps scientists understand the structure and behavior of the superheated gas and debris moving rapidly around a black hole.
A recent paper in The Astrophysical Journal describes the results from the Cygnus X-1 observations and reports the most accurate measurement so far of the black hole’s hard X-ray polarization. The study was written by a wide-ranging collaboration that includes many of Krawczynski’s colleagues at WashU, among them graduate student Ephraim Gau and postdoctoral research associate Kun Hu, who served as corresponding authors.
“If we try to find Cyg X-1 in the sky, we’d be looking for a really tiny point of X-ray light,” Gau said. “Polarization is thus useful for learning about all the stuff happening around the black hole when we can’t take normal pictures from Earth.”
These findings came from XL-Calibur’s July 2024 balloon flight, which carried the telescope from Sweden to Canada.
Record-Setting Results From the 2024 Flight
In addition to the Cygnus X-1 data, the XL-Calibur team recently released new measurements of polarized hard X-rays from the Crab pulsar and its surrounding wind nebula, one of the brightest continuous X-ray sources in the sky.
Krawczynski noted that the 2024 mission achieved several technical milestones, including high-quality measurements of both Cygnus X-1 and the Crab pulsar.
“Collaborating with colleagues at WashU, as well as other groups in the U.S. and Japan, on XL-Calibur has been extremely rewarding,” said Mark Pearce, an XL-Calibur collaborator and a professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. “Our observations of Crab and Cyg X-1 clearly show that the XL-Calibur design is sound. I very much hope that we can now build on these successes with new balloon flights.”
Preparing for Future Flights and New Black Hole Targets
The researchers plan to expand their work during the next XL-Calibur mission, which is scheduled to launch from Antarctica in 2027. They hope to gather data from additional black holes and neutron stars, allowing them to study a wider range of high-energy cosmic environments.
“Combined with the data from NASA satellites such as IXPE, we may soon have enough information to solve longstanding questions about black hole physics in the next few years,” added Krawczynski, the project’s primary investigator.
Reference: “XL-Calibur Polarimetry of Cyg X-1 Further Constrains the Origin of Its Hard-state X-Ray Emission” by Hisamitsu Awaki, Matthew G. Baring, Richard Bose, Jacob Casey, Sohee Chun, Adrika Dasgupta, Pavel Galchenko, Ephraim Gau, Kazuho Goya, Tomohiro Hakamata, Takayuki Hayashi, Scott Heatwole, Kun Hu, Daiki Ishi, Manabu Ishida, Fabian Kislat, Mózsi Kiss, Kassi Klepper, Henric Krawczynski, Haruki Kuramoto, Lindsey Lisalda, Yoshitomo Maeda, Hironori Matsumoto, Shravan Vengalil Menon, Aiko Miyamoto, Asca Miyamoto, Kaito Murakami, Takashi Okajima, Mark Pearce, Brian Rauch, Nicole Rodriguez Cavero, Kentaro Shirahama, Sean Spooner, Hiromitsu Takahashi, Keisuke Tamura, Yuusuke Uchida, Kasun Wimalasena, Masato Yokota and Marina Yoshimoto, 13 November 2025, The Astrophysical Journal.
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae0f1d
XL-Calibur is a collaboration among WashU, the University of New Hampshire, Osaka University, Hiroshima University, ISAS/JAXA, the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and Goddard Space Flight Center (and Wallops Flight Facility), as well as 13 additional research institutes.
The Washington University in St. Louis group acknowledges additional NASA support through the grants 80NSSC20K0329, 80NSSC21K1817, 80NSSC22K1291, 80NSSC22K1883, 80NSSC23K1041, and 80NSSC24K1178, as well as funding from the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
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1 Comment
Note 2511280438_Source1.Reinterpretation Storytelling【
Source 1.
https://scitechdaily.com/new-x-ray-signals-reveal-wild-activity-around-a-black-hole/
1.
A new X-ray signal shows intense activity around the black hole.
_The high-altitude balloon telescope has discovered a new pattern of X-rays emitted near the black hole Cygnus X-1. This signal gives scientists a clearer view of how gas and radiation work in the most extreme environments known.
[Electromagnetic X-rays use polarization at right angles in response to electric or magnetic fields in astronomical observations.
[“Polarization is useful for finding out all the phenomena that occur around a black hole when you can’t take normal pictures on Earth.”
_XL-Calibur is designed to measure the polarization of light, which indicates the direction in which electromagnetic oscillations occur. Tracking this direction helps scientists understand the structure and behavior of superheated gases and debris that move quickly around black holes.]
>>>>I’ve been tracking 3 paths where stars are created since yesterday, as soon as I wake up early this morning.
>>>One of them is the answer to the tracking of _XL-Calibur. It is around the black hole vixer. There are stars around the area where the so-called accretion disk is formed.
>>> Such stars are as red as tiny dust. This is presumed to be vixxa. In one vixer, there are so many vixxa.stars in the clouds like grains of raindrops. They are born in the clouds and form raindrops. The collection of raindrops and wildly wind storms requires a new scale of interpretation of the mass of waterballs. The system is msbase.galaxy. Hmm.
>>> This type of star formation mode is qpeoms.field. This is the first theory to explain how so many stars came into being in the universe.
>>>> The second theory is that stars condense near the cold absolute temperature, leading to local point fusion. Related data were recently found in public data.
>>>> The path of the third star’s formation came from my conjecture, qqcell ≈ mbshell. Electromagnetic Pulsa mode.
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1-1.
_Using the balloon-mounted XL-caliber telescope, the team obtained the most precise polarized X-ray measurements so far in the black hole Cygnus X-1. These observations provide new clues as to how the superheated material swirls, stretches and shines as it falls into the center of the black hole.
2.
_An international team of physicists, including researchers from the University of Washington in St. Louis, has collected new data to help explain how matter falls into a black hole and how huge amounts of light and energy are emitted in these extreme environments.
2-1.
_Using a balloon-mounted telescope named XL-Caliber, the team observed Cygnus X-1, a famous black hole about 7,000 light years from Earth.
3.How XL-Calibur Traces Polarized X-rays
_XL-Calibur is designed to measure the polarization of light, which indicates the direction in which electromagnetic oscillations occur. Tracking this direction helps scientists understand the structure and behavior of superheated gases and debris that move quickly around black holes.
3-1.
_A recent paper published in The Astrophysical Journal describes Cygnus X-1 observations and reports the most accurate measurements of hard X-ray polarization of black holes to date.
_”To find Cyg X-1 in the sky, you have to find a tiny X-ray light,” Gaou said. “Polarization is useful for figuring out all the phenomena that happen around a black hole when you can’t take a normal picture of it from Earth.”