What happens when a star gets hit by a supernova? This may sound like a strange question, but say that two stars are relatively next to one another in a binary star system, what would happen to one of the stars if the other went supernova? Would it explode as well, or would it survive the blast?
There are certain cases where the remaining star survives; this happened to high-mass X-ray binary star systems, pairs which consist of a neutron star or black hole (the remnant of a supernova) and a massive star. The X-rays are produced when some of the material ejected by the star is captured by the supernova remnant.

The most famous of these is Cygnus X-1, the first object widely accepted to be a black hole. The massive star in this pair has the same name as one of our moderators.