Chandra Release - October 17, 2007

Visual Description: M33 X-7

 The main component of this graphic is an artist's representation of M33 X-7, a binary system in the nearby galaxy M33. In this system, a black hole is revolving around a star about 70 times more massive than the Sun (shown as a large bright blue spherical object). In the illustration, an orange disk surrounds the black hole. This depicts material, fed by a wind from the blue companion star, which has been swept into orbit around the black hole. Rather than flowing unimpeded and uniformly into space, wind from the star is pulled towards the black hole by its powerful gravity. The wind that does make it past the black hole is disrupted, causing turbulence and ripples beyond the disk. The blue companion star itself is also distorted by the gravity from the black hole. The star is stretched slightly in the direction of the black hole, causing it to become less dense in this region and to appear darker.  The inset at lower left shows a composite of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (in blue) and the Hubble Space Telescope (in white). Bright speckled objects in the inset image are young, massive stars around M33 X-7, and a fuzzy bright, blue Chandra source is M33 X-7 itself. X-rays from Chandra reveal how long the black hole is eclipsed by the companion star, which indicates the size of the companion.