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Home > Cosmic Corkscrews

Cosmic Corkscrews [1]

High-speed jets of charged particles spiral out into space from SS 433, a binary system that consists of a giant star and a black hole. Hot gas funnels from the surface of the giant star into a disk around the black hole. Some of the material falls into the black hole, but some is pushed back out by a powerful magnetic field. The black hole is wobbling, so the jets of ejected material spin around like water from a spinning lawn sprinkler, forming the corkscrew shapes. SS 433 is so bright that it's classified as a micro-quasar, and it's the only one in the galaxy. [Blundell & Bowler, NRAO/AUI/NSF]

SS 433
Radio image of SS 433, a micro-quasar powered by a black hole
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Source URL:https://legacy.stardate.org/astro-guide/gallery/cosmic-corkscrews

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[1] https://legacy.stardate.org/astro-guide/gallery/cosmic-corkscrews