Imagine the Universe!

XTE J1550-564
Movie (6 MB)
AUDIO:
NONE

VIDEO:
This animation begins with a view outside of Milky Way and then zooms in on one of the spiral arms to the double-star system XTE J1550-564, which contains a black hole and a normal Sun-like star. As gaseous material is pulled off the companion star onto the black hole, it forms a disk that is heated to millions of degrees. The animation then shows the ejection and evolution of the jets of high-energy particles.

Imagine the Universe is a service of the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), Dr. Nicholas White (Director), within the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Imagine Team
Project Leader: Dr. Jim Lochner
All material on this site has been created and updated between 1997-2004.

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