An artist's impression of the accretion disk around the compact object in the X-ray binary system Cygnus X-3, showing the X-rays scattering off the interior of the funnel-shaped cavity before being detected by IXPE.
"We have discovered that the compact object is surrounded by an envelope of a dense, opaque matter," said Veledina in a."The light that we observe is a reflection off the inner funnel walls formed by the surrounding gas, resembling a cup with a mirror interior." "ULXs are typically observed as luminous spots in the images of distant galaxies, with their emissions amplified by the focusing effects of the compact object's surrounding funnel, acting akin to a megaphone," said study team member Juri Poutanen of the University of Turku."However, due to the vast distances to these sources … they appear relatively faint to X-ray telescopes.