Wind from a Black Hole

Binary star system GRO J1655-40 consists of a relatively normal star about twice as massive as the Sun co-orbiting with a black hole of about seven solar masses . This striking artist's vision of the exotic binary system helps visualize matter drawn from the normal star by gravity and swirling toward the black hole. But it also includes a wind of material escaping from the black hole's accretion disk . In fact, astronomers now argue that Chandra Observatory x-ray data indicate a high-speed wind is being driven from this system's disk by magnetic forces. Internal magnetic fields also help drive material in the swirling disk into the black hole itself . If you had x-ray eyes as good as Chandra's, you could find GRO J1655-40 about 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius .