Daiki Miura

The binary system SS 433 ejects two thin jets of gas at nearly the speed of light. One flies toward us, the other away from us. In April 2024 and March 2025, three instruments watched them simultaneously: the X-ray telescope XRISM, ordinary optical telescopes, and a near-infrared camera.

Deep in the constellation Cygnus, two stars circle each other. One is a giant, the other a black hole. The giant continuously ejects a stream of gas into space — a stellar wind. When this wind falls under the black hole's X-rays, it lights up like a neon sign. Astronomers captured this light and split it into colors to learn what the wind is made of and how it moves.