(By Ron Allen) Tonight at about 10:00 p.m., the Northern Cross will be at the zenith point. So will the Star of Bethlehem. The Northern Cross is a very distinctive cross which is contained in the constellation Cygnus (the swan). Cygnus is a picture of a swan that represents the first and Second Coming of Christ. The bright star Deneb, at the top of the cross, means “the Lord comes”. Other stars, Azel, “who goes and returns quickly” and Sadar, “who returns in a circle” show the coming and returning of Christ.
The Northern Cross is home to an enigmatic object known as X-1 Cygnus. Astronomers studying X-1 Cygnus found that it was one of the strongest x-ray sources in the sky, but was also very small. Later researchers showed that the x-rays are generated by a stream of plasma drawn off of a nearby star (known as HDE 226868) near to the mysterious object. Finally astronomers identified X-1 Cygnus as a “black hole,” or an object of such high density and gravitational pull that not even light can escape from it. Black holes are formed when a star at least 3.2 times larger than our own sun becomes a supernova and its gravitational pull causes a collapse into a black hole. If an object the size of Earth was collapsing into a black hole, it would be only one centimeter in diameter. READ MORE
