Cygnus X-1, the first black hole ever detected, is more massive than we thought

Black holes are everywhere.

Luckily, space is big*, so even the closest ones we know of are pretty far away, thousands of light years distant. And we see them in every decently sized galaxy out here, too, from millions to billions of light years away.

But Cygnus X-1 is special. It was the first. The first ever detected, that is, and is still one of the closest we know. But new observations show that a few things we thought we knew about it weren't right, including its distance, mass, and even ...