Artist's Conception of SS 433

The massive OB star orbits a black hole companion every 13 days. Material from the OB star spills onto the black hole and forms an accretion disk. Two narrow jets of material are ejected at 1/4 the speed of light. The cause of the jets is not clear, but they must originate in the vicinity of the black hole, presumably from the inner edge of the accretion disk. The jets precess with a period of 164 days (like a wobbling spinning top).

IMAGES | By Mission | Stars | Cataclysmic Variables | X-ray Binaries | Pulsars | Supernova Remnants & Planetary Nebulae | Galaxies | Active Galactic Nuclei | Clusters and Groups of Galaxies | X-ray/gamma-ray Background & Deep Fields | Solar System Objects | Gamma Ray Bursts