Astronomers discovered a spectacular set of rings around the black hole in images taken using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil Gareth Swift Observatory. NASA said X-ray images of the giant ring revealed information about the black hole, its companion star, and intermediate dust clouds.

“This black hole is part of a binary star system called V404 Cygni, about 7,800 light-years away from Earth. The black hole is actively pulling matter from a companion star (about half the mass of the sun) into a disk surrounding an invisible object. NASA said that this material emits light in X-rays, so astronomers refer to these systems as “X-ray binary systems.”

In 2015, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory discovered an X-ray burst from V404 Cygnus, creating a high-energy ring. These rings are created when a beam of X-rays from the black hole system bounces off the dust cloud between V404 Cygnus and the earth. This phenomenon is called optical echo. Cosmic dust is composed of tiny solid particles.

These rings tell the astronomer V404 the landscape between Cygni and the earth. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the diameter of these rings reveals the distance of the intermediate dust cloud shot by the light projectile. When the cloud is closer to the earth, the energetic ring appears larger, and vice versa.

“The light echo appears as a narrow ring, rather than a wide ring or halo, because the X-ray burst only lasts for a relatively short time,” NASA said.