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NASA's Chandra Discovers Fastest Wind from Stellar-Mass Black Hole

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has identified the fastest wind ever detected from a stellar-mass black hole in the binary system IGR J17091-3624. The artist's impression illustrates how the black hole pulls gas away from a companion star, forming an accretion disk. Chandra spectra reveal a high-speed wind escaping the disk at 9300 km/s, associated with a He-like Fe XXV absorption line. This extraordinary speed is comparable to the escape velocity at 1000 Schwarzschild radii, indicating that more gas may be expelled than is accreted by the black hole.

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NASA's Chandra Discovers Fastest Wind from Stellar-Mass Black Hole

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  1. Chandra Science Highlight IGR J17091-3624: NASA’S Chandra Finds Fastest Wind from Stellar-Mass Black Hole Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss This artist’s impression shows a binary system in which a stellar-mass black hole is pulling gas away from a companion star to form an accretion disk around the black hole. Chandra spectra (inset) indicate that a high speed wind is flowing away from the disk. • A Chandra High Energy grating spectrum reveals an absorption line at 6.91±0.01 keV. • Associating this line with He-like Fe XXV requires a blue-shift of 9300 km/s (0.03c), the highest speed detected in a wind associated with a disk around a stellar-mass black hole. • This speed is equivalent to the escape velocity at 1000 Schwarzchild radii. • Models for the wind suggest that thermal or magnetic processes may be expelling more gas than the black hole accretes. Reference: King, A. et al, 2012, ApJ, 746, L20; arXiv:1112.3648 Distance Estimate: about 28,000 light years Chandra HETG grating spectrum FEBRUARY 2012 CXC operated for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

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