Fact Sheet
Microquasar
This artist's concept shows a black hole "stealing" gas from a normal companion star in the system GRO J1655-40. The normal star is at lower right, with the black hole at upper left. As the gas approaches the black hole, it forms a wide, flat disk that's heated to millions of degrees. Some of the gas eventually will spiral into the black hole, but some squirts back into space as powerful "jets." The material in these jets travels at near the speed of light. Astronomers call this system a "microquasar" because it works in the same way as a quasar, but on a much smaller scale. [ESA/NASA/F. Mirabel (CEA)]
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