Great Annihilator

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This article is about the astronomical object. For the Swans album, see The Great Annihilator.
Great Annihilator
Observation data
J2000
Constellation
Ophiuchus
Right ascension 17h 43m 54.83s[1]
Declination −29° 44′ 42.6″[1]
Distance
16,000 ly
(5,000[2] pc)
Database references
SIMBADdata

1E1740.7-2942, or the Great Annihilator,[3][4] is a Milky Way microquasar, located near the Galactic Center on the sky.[5][2] It likely consists of a black hole and a companion star. It is one of the brightest X-ray sources in the region around the Galactic Center.[6]

The object was first detected in soft X-rays by the Einstein Observatory,[7] and later detected in hard X-rays by the Soviet Granat space observatory.[2] Followup observations by the SIGMA detector on board Granat showed that the object was a variable emitter of massive amounts of photon pairs at 511 keV, which usually indicates the annihilation of an electron-positron pair.[8][9] This led to the nickname, "Great Annihilator."[10] Early observations also showed a spectrum similar to that of the Cygnus X-l, a black hole with a stellar companion, which suggested that Great Annihilator was also a stellar mass black hole.[8]

The object also has a radio source counterpart that emits jets approximately 1.5 pc (5 ly) long.

kpc (or 16,000 ly).[2] This means that while the object is likely located along our line of sight towards the center of the Milky Way, it may be closer to us than Sagittarius A*
, the black hole at the center of our galaxy.

References

  1. ^ a b "NAME Great Annihilator". SIMBAD. Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg.
  2. ^
    ISSN 0004-6361
    .
  3. Bibcode:1994AstL...20..777S
    .
  4. ^ Odenwald, Sten (1997). "What do we know about the 'Great Annihilator' in the center of the Milky Way?". Astronomy Cafe. Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
  5. ^ Mirabel, I. F. "The Great Annihilator in the Central Region of the Galaxy" (PDF). eso.org. pp. 51–54.
  6. S2CID 119354178
    .
  7. ISSN 0004-637X
    .
  8. ^
    ISSN 0004-637X
    .
  9. ISSN 0004-637X
    .
  10. ISSN 0040-781X
    . Retrieved 2019-10-24.
  11. S2CID 4264588
    .
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