Chandra Release - October 3, 2002

Visual Description: XTE J1550-564

 A series of Chandra images has allowed scientists to trace the evolution of large-scale X-ray jets produced by a black hole in a binary star system. The astronomical image featured is named XTE J1550-564 and is shown in 3 panels down the left side from August 2000, March 2002, and June 2002, with 2 blue sources in August, changing to three sources in March, and then back to two in June.  Why is this? Following an outburst of X-rays from the black hole, observations with Chandra and radio telescopes detected first one jet, then another opposing jet of high-energy particles moving away from the black hole at about half the speed of light. Four years after the outburst, the jets had moved more than 3 light years apart with the left jet slowing down and disappearing. The schematic on the right side shows gaseous matter being pulled from a normal orange-colored star to form a disk around the black hole. The disk looks like a fluffy rainbow of gas going down a drain with a bright, thin white jet coming out of the top and bottom of the disk’s center.  When the gas is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees it gives off X-rays and intense electromagnetic forces in the disk can expel jets of high-energy particles.