December 30, 1995
Somewhere in the sky tonight, a star is being born in a cloud of gas and dust, beginning a journey that will last billions of years.
LMC X-1: A Black Hole Candidate
Birthday · December 30, 1995
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APOD published December 30, 1995. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
The strongest source of X-rays in the Large Magellanic Cloud originates from an unusually energetic binary star system. This strong source, dubbed LMC X-1, is thought to be a normal and compact star orbiting each other. Gas stripped of the normal star falls onto the compact star, heats up, and emits X-rays. The X-rays shining from the system knock electrons off atoms for light years around, causing some atoms to glow noticeably in X-rays when the electrons re-combine. Motion in the binary system indicates the compact star is probably a black hole, since its high mass - roughly five times that of our Sun - should be enough to cause even a neutron star to implode.