NRAO: National Radio Astronomy Observatory

About this Image

A time ordered sequence of images of the microquasar GRO J1655-10, with earlier times at the top and later times underneath. This sequence covers a month in the life of the microquasar, as imaged by the VLBA. GRO J1655-40 is a binary system in which the outer envelope of the normal star is overflowing onto its black hole companion. The accreting matter swirls into a rapidly rotating disk as it falls towards the black hole; near the center, some of this matter is "squirted out" perpendicular to the disk, at relativistic speeds (i.e, speeds approaching the speed of light). The radio emission associated with these relativistic jets is what we see here. The intrinsic speed of these jets is about 90% of the speed of light. Because the jets are moving almost as fast as the radiation they emit, the approaching jet appears to move even faster, and the apparent motions range up to 1.3 times the speed of light. See http://www.astro.soton.ac.uk/~rih/j1655.html for an artist's impression of this system.

Investigator(s):  Robert Hjellming and Michael Rupen

Alternate Resolutions

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This image is available in the following downloadable versions:

• 491 x 524 color JPEG

If you would like to obtain a higher resolution version of this image, please contact Pat Smiley.

For More Information

• Read the Press Release
• Read the Journal article
• Visit related website http://www.astro.soton.ac.uk/~rih/j1655.html
• Up one level for more info on Black_Holes
• For unfamiliar terms, visit the NRAO Radio Astronomy Glossary

Technical Data

Telescope	VLBA
Date of Observation	1994-09-00
Type of Observation	Continuum Observations
Band	L
Wavelength	20 cm
Frequency	1.4 GHz
Center of Image	RA: 16:54:0.14, Dec: -39:50:44.90 (J2000)
Field of View	0.0008 x 0.0001 degrees
Technical Caption	VLBA images at 1.6 GHz. Images made from data collected in August and September, 1994. Top image from Aug 18-19; next one from Aug 22-23; next Aug 25-26; next Aug 25-26; next Sep 1-2; next Sep 8-9; next Sep 12-13; and last Sep 20-21.



Astronomical database entries for GRO J1655-40
• Query SIMBAD for more GRO J1655-40 data

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