In the fall of 2016, Russian astronomers recorded a gigantic radio flash from a strong X-ray binary source known as Cygnus X-3 or Cygnus X-3. The activity occurred after more than five years of immobility of the source. Opening details are published on the arxiv.org pre-release server.
Swan X-3 is classified by specialists as a microquasar, and is a powerful X-ray source that is part of the binary system. Cygnus X-3 is located 23 thousand light years away from Earth, and its orbital periodicity is about 4.8 hours, was first discovered in 1967. Now Swan X-3 is monitored by specialists using gamma, IR, radio and X-ray equipment.
Radio flares periodically appear at the source, the first of which was recorded in 1972; in 2011, astronomers also managed to register a powerful radiation source. However, for more than five years, the source did not give any signals, and its activity in the radio spectrum decreased significantly.
As the specialists from the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAL) in Nizhny Arkhyz managed to assume, this was the "hibernation" phase, which was interrupted by a powerful radio burst in September 2016. It happened after the source passed into the "super-soft" X-ray state, just like in 2011.
Daria Romanyuk