Chandra Release - May 29, 2020

Visual Description: MAXI J1820+070

The main panel of the graphic is a large optical and infrared image of the Milky Way galaxy from the PanSTARRS optical telescope in Hawaii. There is a cross above the plane of the galaxy that marks the location of MAXI J1820+070, a stellar-mass black hole. The colors of the main panel are pale blue and golden brown, in a dotted texture showing a dusty and dense area. The inset at upper right shows a movie that cycles through four Chandra X-ray Observatory observations, where "day 0" corresponds to the first observation on November 13th, 2018, about four months after the jet's launch. MAXI J1820+070 is a bright purple X-ray source in the middle of the image and sources of X-rays can be seen moving away from the black hole in jets to the north and south. MAXI J1820+070 is a point source of X-rays, although it appears to be larger than a point source because it is much brighter than the jet sources. The southern jet is too faint to be detected in the May and June 2019 observations. Just how fast are the jets of material moving away from the black hole? From Earth's perspective, it looks as if the northern jet is moving at 60% the speed of light, while the southern one is traveling at an impossible-sounding 160% of light speed!