This month, the Vermillion bird of the South ¡ª which is currently flying 550 km above Earth ¡ª meets an astronomical swan some 6,000 light-years away.
In Eastern mythology, the Vermillion bird of the South represents fire ¡ª it is a spirit creature renowned for its elegance and power. Its Japanese name, Suzaku, is also that of an X-ray-detecting satellite launched by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency in 2005.
Now Suzaku¡¯s eyes have been trained on one of the most famous objects in the galaxy ¡ª the black hole in the constellation Cygnus (meaning ¡°Swan¡°), which is also sometimes known as the Northern Cross.
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